


To match our strides

by Stonehill



Category: Naruto
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Blank Period, Canon Compliant, Cooking Lessons, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Friendship, Hair cut, Introspection, Mutual Pining, Post-War, Romance, Sparring, Though mostly it's just Naruto actively pining, Tutoring, hinata’s birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonehill/pseuds/Stonehill
Summary: There’s a memory in the back of his mind, a phantom of a hand scratching the back of his neck in sheepish confession. But his only remaining hand is busy holding on to the precious Hyuuga sake between them, and he is left defenceless to her scrutiny.Yet, Hinata takes mercy on him, hiding her laugh behind her long sleeve and lowering her gaze to give him privacy to recover from her observations.He isn’t sure this is a competition, but she doesn’t get to be the only one who pays careful attention anymore. He might not be blessed and cursed with the burden of the Byakugan, but he doesn’t need to see through objects to see through people. And he is beginning to unravel the pages that make up Hyuuga Hinata with more ease.During the first winter after the war Naruto decides it's time to figure out Hyuuga Hinata
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 145
Kudos: 317





	1. Chapter 1

> “Caught in night rain what became your umbrella? A voice that answers your call? A memory of sharing the same view? The first time you matched their pace?”
> 
> \- Goblin, the Lonely and Great God

* * *

When the sun sets over Konoha, dropping suddenly below the mountain line to cast deep purple and blue shadows across the recovering town, the citizens come out to meet the chill darkness, lighting kitchen windows, street lamps, and lanterns. They combat the dark of winter nights with bright, warm hues of artificial suns. Yellow, red, and orange. And just like that, the heat of their easy defence steals the demons from the shadows and the fear from the night.

And in the last dredges of twilight laughter returns, as if humanity had held its collective breath in the transition from day to night and are now breathing it out once more. School kids run along the streets in-between workers let go late, fathers running errands, women with their children on their shoulders. Shinobi return from the practice grounds to join the people who are still working on reconstruction, mixing so you can’t tell the difference even by the sweat cooling against their skin.

The war is over, and the town Naruto grew up in is finally beginning to look like itself again.

“Waaaaah,” a girl his own age exclaims as she pauses almost right in front of him to catch the first snow flake of the winter season.

He watches it fall, white against the deep blue sky, and is suddenly overcome by a selfish urge to reach out and grasp it before she can catch it, to steal it from her.

But his single hand is clutching a heavy folder full of papers and assignments, and he has no choice but to watch the snow flake tremble against her skin, and then melt away.

She looks up and catches his eyes with a smile so bright Naruto immediately finds a smile stretching his own lips. “It’s the first snow!” she exclaims.

“About time, too,” he agrees. “It’s been too long.”

“So it has,” she stems in, and they leave each other, laughter ringing like bells among the snowflakes.

By the time he makes it to Ichiraku’s his hair and overcoat are dotted with snowflakes that cling to him like little stars without the night sky to contrast them.

“Yo, Naruto!” Teuchi greets him, toothy grin on his face. “Thought I wouldn’t see you tonight.”

“What are you talking about, old man?”

Naruto drops his folder on the counter and busies himself, wildly brushing the snow out of his hair. He thinks he should probably cut it sometime soon; the long fringes are endearing in childhood, but he’s worn them long for too long and he’s missing the sensation of wind against his ears.

“Well, everybody else are holing up against the cold and the snow,” comes the cheerful reply.

And Naruto looks up to find the stall empty save for himself, and he grins. “It’s probably cause you’re hogging all the heat in there.”

That gets him a good laugh, and Naruto’s smile widens.

He orders a bowl of hot ramen that soothes his skin and warms him all the way to his bones, and listens to Ayame and her father talk about the day, about the customers that come and go, about the construction work they get to observe as they cook and maintain the shop.

Light is returning to their eyes, as it is to everyone else, and Naruto listens to them with a quiet smile, as they banter about bad Rinne festival presents and family members with tacky taste.

“How about you, Naruto?” Ayame asks over her father’s loud protests that his presents aren’t that bad.

Naruto, who’s pushed his empty bowl aside and opened his folder to attempt a success that continuously evades him, hums in question.

“You’ve been awfully quiet this whole time,” she says. “What have you been up to? How are you?”

Now, finally, he looks up, drawn by the voice of concern that has grown familiar over the years. He finds a smile for her, but it quickly turns into a grimace. “Tsunade-baa-chan is a slave driver is what she is.”

“Tsunade-sama,” Teuchi corrects him.

Naruto grins and shakes his head at the futility in the correction. He doesn’t do it out of disrespect to the office, but out of a sense of familiarity with Sakura’s former mentor. A mentor, who’d taken a single look at his school records, roared with all the rage of … well, Tsunade, and forced her tutelage on him.

When he’d protested he didn’t need more studying—and certainly didn’t have time for it—she’d thrown an arm aroundhis neck in a move reminiscent of a wrestling grip and directed his attention to Kakashi’s mountain of paperwork.

_“See that, Naruto? That’s your future if you want to be Hokage. And it’s going to kill you if you aren’t better equipped than what you are now.”_

He’d swallowed thickly at the prospects, knowing the words to be no empty threat. But now he’s beginning to regret his choices.

“Aaaaah,” he complains, looking down at the complicated math and business problems that won’t solve themselves. “It’s not my fault I was born stupid!”

Not for the first time does he lament growing up alone. He wonders if school would’ve been easier if he’d lived under the fourth Hokage’s wing; Minato was no push-over intellectually, he’s learnt since he’d begun asking around with purpose. And he knows his mother well enough to know she would’ve kept him to the books under pain of death.

Not unlike what Tsunade is doing for him now.

The thought makes him smile fondly down at the papers.

It’s not like they ever _had_ to give him the time of day. And yet here they are trying to help him the best that they can.

“Maybe you need a tutor,” Ayame suggests brightly. “Somebody you can go to when you have trouble solving a problem.”

“Well,” Naruto says, resting his chin against the papers and glowering at the pots in front of him. “Shikamaru just makes everything more complicated and I can’t follow him at all. Sai makes fun of me, and I don’t dare ask Sakura-chan for help. She’d just pummel me into the ground for not paying attention in the first place and for wasting her time, when she could be helping out at the hospital, instead.”

He wrecks his brain for other possibilities, and ends gloomily. “And Sasuke’s never around to ask for help. Damn hermit.”

“Well,” Ayame says, scratching her cheek in thought. “Maybe there’s somebody you haven’t thought of. Of course, you’d need somebody who didn’t just do well in school, but who understands politics, and knows how to run a large institution.”

Naruto opens his mouth to complain that he doesn’t know anybody like that. Who at their age, other than Sakura, would know how to run an institution? But he closesit again, a name nagging in the back of his head, one he barely dares utter for the memory of a hand against his cheek and a smile he hasn’t seen in weeks.

And as if summoned by his thoughts, by remembrance, Hyuuga Hinata slides into a chair two seats down from him, dressed in full jounin uniform, midnight locks sliding away from the Uzumaki sigil on her back, and rests her forehead against the counter.

She yawns so hugely it draws the attention of both Ayame and her father, who lean curiously over the counter to check that her soul didn’t escape out her mouth.

They share a fond smile, then, as if this happens all the time at Ichiraku’s and Ayame says “post mission special coming right up.”

“Two bowls, please,” comes the weak answer from beyond the curtain of ink cascading down over the counter. Hinata’s stomach growls in agreement, unladylike and adorable.

And Naruto carefully packs away his papers before piping up “and a pot of coffee, I think.”

“No,” she disagrees. “I want to be able to sleep when I get back home. But thank—”

As she speaks Naruto slides into the seat beside her and carefully picks up a lock of her midnight hair so he can catch her eye. And Hinata falters with a flush.

“—you.”

She blinks up at him. “Naruto-kun?”

“Welcome back,” he greets her with an easy smile.

He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten to greet her back from a mission before. Usually her team debrief and return to their families, to homes full of life and— well, maybe not always warmth, but kinship and companionship.

So it’s a new sensation to see her smile blossom on her face in response to his, her pale eyes crinkling with tired joy. Her voice is a ringing in his ears, of winter bells and snowflake quiet, and her hair rests in soft locks between his fingers.

And this he will remember.

“I’m home.”

The way she bends the words as if they aren’t a standard greeting, but as if there is a home to find in him, at this empty ramen stand during the first snow of winter.

The way her smile brightens like the first rays of sunlight on a cold morning, a gift, a reminder that there is light beyond the darkness. That a new day comes every morning.

Heat, unmistakable and embarrassing, crawls up the back of his neck and into his cheeks and he drops the locks of her hair as if they’ve burnt him. He slams his single hand over his mouth and turns away, grateful when he hears Ayame cheerfully announce Hinata’s ramen is ready.

Naruto slowly exhales through his nose, and glowers at the smug look on Teuchi’s face, before turning around just in time to see her brush away the snow that clings to her hair and clothes.

Naruto watches her quietly as she eats, the way her bandaged fingers move more stiffly than usual, the way she is slow and careful, precise and measured, rather than fluid and organic. She is one of the first to have passed the jounin exams since their return from the war and Kakashi-sensei has made good use of her ever since, sending her on long missions and giving her very little time to rest in the village when she’s home.

And Naruto, with his own missions, and his insistence on helping with constructing whenever he’s free to do so, has barely had time to lay eyes on her—much less talk to her—since they returned from the war.

They’ve all recovered in their own ways.

But somehow he’d expected that they would do it together.

“How was your mission?” he asks quietly, once she’s consumed her first bowl of ramen and is shifting between bowls.

Hinata hesitates over the second one, glancing at him briefly. “It was good,” she says. “Not too dangerous. Surveillance and cartography is rarely that,” she adds with a smile and a laugh.

Naruto hums and eyes the scruffs on her clothes, the bandages, and the bags under her eyes doubtfully, and she flushes again at his scrutiny.

“Well, the outer fringes aren’t as peaceful as the areas around the hidden villages,” she explains. “You know that as well as I do.”

Naruto grunts at having been caught and countered so easily. He looks down at his one hand and wonders when he started feeling averse to her going out into the field. She’s a strong kunoichi and she has her team.

No. What he doesn’t like is her going away on her own.

“How far does he send you off to, anyway?”

She takes her time to answer, slurping her ramen with an impressive speed and fervour he wouldn’t believe of her if he hadn’t seen it himself—again and again and again.

“The Byakugan is a rare trait that the other villages don’t have the privilege of easily accessing,” she begins to explain. “But in this new world we’re all trying to work together to build, it makes mapping out the outer fringes and territories that much easier.”

“So everywhere?”

Hinata laughs. “Yes, everywhere.”

 _And as far away as possible_ , Naruto thinks, humming sullenly under his breath as he rests his chin on the counter.

“Man,” he complains, “I feel so left out.”

He tries not to think about how selfish attachment burns in his blood, bleeding from his heart like a wound that will never quite close. He does his best to avoid childlike complaints, to keep them a slow buzz, barely substantial in his ears, so they don’t become words in his mouth. Words he will regret, when he has barely really begun at all.

“He isn’t keeping you at home unnecessarily?” Hinata voices, studying him from out of the corner of her eye.

When he glances back at her it is not his face she’s looking at, but his arm. His good arm. If he didn’t know her he would hear only soft concern in her voice. But Naruto knows Hinata. And Naruto sees through the refined grace that won’t leave her movements even in exhaustion, even when thousands of miles have carried her home.

Naruto sees the anger in her eyes.

And that is new. Is an unknown. The war is months and months away and he is a hero, beloved by the village. But Naruto thinks that forever the memory of loneliness will haunt him, will chill his bones and cast shadows in his home. Will make him question how long it will take before he is alone again.

Hinata’s anger on his behalf is unfamiliar and it warms him, burns away that fear a little more. Again. Her anger is a promise, whispered so quietly he has yet to fully hear all the words she has to speak, that maybe one day he will never fear again.

And, yet, now in the present it weighs on him and makes him awkward, bumbling, and maybe too loud.

“No, no!” he exclaims, shooting upright and waving his one hand to dispel her assumptions. “Kakashi-sensei isn’t keeping me anywhere. I promise. In fact I barely have time to do everything he and Tsunade are making me do. That’s not what I meant, at all!”

“Oh.”

She calms, and some of the anger goes out of her then.

But Naruto is on a roll, floundering and a little awkward, a little insecure, and he launches into a list of everything they’re making him do. He tells her of his missions, and complains about his studies. He tells her about Sakura and Sai and Ino and Iruka-sensei, and all the rest. He tells her about the rebuilding she’s missed while she’s been out on prolonged missions. He tells her about Hanabi bugging him to practice with her, about helping out at the academy, about Konohamaru and Kurama and every single story she might have lost, like raindrops seeping into the dry earth below their feet.

Until she smiles softly, fondly at him, until the exhaustion begins to mould her limbs and her movements. In a lull in the conversation she pushes away her empty ramen bowls, and thanks Ayame. And then she leans down to rest her head on her arms to ask him questions and prompt him to keep talking, listening to every word he speaks, her eyes never straying from his face.

And Naruto—

Naruto doesn’t know what to do with her. Doesn’t know how to handle the attention she bestows upon him with such quiet care. He doesn’t fully comprehend how somebody so kind and gentle could’ve placed her eyes on him and found what he has to say so worthy of attention that her eyes would lock.

But he thinks he can imagine what she deserves in return, what he can give her.

And as she begins to relax he lowers his voice, speaks with less exuberance. He doesn’t have a nice voice; it is rough around the edges and he always speaks too loudly. He will never be able to sing her a lullaby. But he lowers his voice and calms his heart, and hopes that it will be enough to see her fall asleep at the counter.

When her eyes flutter closed, he leans down to mirror her position, watching her breathing even out. And he smiles.

The grace drains out of her in sleep, her arm falls sloppily from the counter and her mouth bends where it rests over her wrist, still closed in a half smile. This close he can see the dark rings under her eyes and under the shade of her hair there is no warm light to hide her pallid skin with an illusion.

“Hey, old man,” he says, straightening from his position. “Can I leave my stuff with you? I’m going to bring Hinata home.”

He gestures to the folder with a wry smile and then theatrically flops his single arm against his side as an explanation.

Teuchi returns his smile with a grin. “You could just wake her and walk her home.”

“Nah,” Naruto laughs. “She deserves her rest. Here,” he adds, handing over payment for her food along with his folder. “Since today is today I won’t get in trouble for treating her to a meal.”

Ayame and her father share a look, but Naruto doesn’t answer their puzzlement.

As he pulls Hinata’s arm over his shoulder, her eyes flutter open, pale white barely visible beyond long lashes.

“It’s just me,” he soothes, his hand still on her wrist and her face so very very close. He can see the drops of evaporating breaths mixing between them. “Can you help me out, Hinata? I need you to hold on to my shirt.”

She nods, and her fingers scrape over his skin, digging into his clothes, and even as she falls back asleep against him, her grip doesn’t weaken.

Naruto laughs silently against the top of her head, resting his nose in her hair for a single moment, before sliding his free arm under her knees and easily hoisting her from the chair.

Ayame and her father both coo mockingly at him, and Naruto flushes with the embarrassment of what he’s done. He scowls in mock-annoyance to the two people that are nearly as family to him.

“Not a word,” he scolds, “I don’t want her fainting on me for the next year over this.”

“Suuure, you don’t,” Ayame teases.

“Your school work will be here for you to pick up tomorrow. Go home and sleep when you’re done.”

“It’s not school work,” Naruto counters, his face still burning. “Thanks for the food, you two.”

They wave him off, Ayame still giggling with the evil knowing he’s only ever seen in girls like Sakura and Ino, and he swallows thickly as he turns to the outside cold.

The snow falls gently over Konoha, promising a pristine winter white for the children to find joy in tomorrow morning, rather than a snowstorm to drown Naruto and Hinata in the night.

Hinata mumbles something against the cold and her free arm comes up to hold him closer, so her nose brushes his jaw and her forehead protector presses coolly against his cheek.

She’s always worn loose clothing, layers in summer and thick sweaters and jackets in winter and autumn, so she is surprisingly small in his arms, lithe in her jounin uniform. A uniform that speaks of skill and acknowledgement, of ability and experience, but one that reveals just how truly easy it would be to crush her under a powerful hand.

Naruto tries not to think about that too much.

The Akatsuki are disbanded. The shinobi villages are unified. Sasuke once again seeks to protect the village. Even Orochimaru has grown surprisingly docile.

War breeds terrifying power in the survivors and there are no threats remaining to overpower her.

He doesn’t need to worry.

She can take care of herself on the battlefield. She’s proven that time and time again.

The low Hyuuga defences are another reminder that the war is truly over; huddled in a small room by the gate with his eyes firmly focused on the old heater keeping him warm, the single guard on duty is easy to sneak past, even with Hinata sleeping against him.

Naruto positions himself on the roof of one of the buildings, checking the gardens below for life. The compound rests as soundly as its princess, breathing out quietly in the dark. No lights promise a sleepless or working adult that might catch him or demand answers of her in the morning.

Thanks to Hanabi’s request for taijutsu practice sessions he knows which room is Hinata’s, but it takes him a moment to count windows on the roof before he finds it.

Naruto lowers her to the bed, sitting her on the edge where she remains, her hands gliding off his shoulders. She sways there, not quite asleep, but too far gone to make decisions and he laughs quietly.

“Silly,” he murmurs, and brushes his fingers over her cheek before guiding a strand of her hair behind her ear.

He helps her out of her sandals and vest, because he knows how uncomfortable they are to sleep in and hangs the vest carefully over her desk chair. His eyes linger on the Uzumaki sigil so standard, yet so _odd_ in the Hyuuga compound. And he tries not to think about the fact that Hinata wears his family’s symbol on her back every time she goes out on a mission.

Everyone does that. It is the Konoha uniform.

It is a promise of unbroken ties and unions made long before he was born.

It has nothing to do with them, now. Personally.

But perhaps it can be an inspiration to him now, to how he’s going to set his mind at ease. Perhaps she wouldn’t be entirely averse to helping him for something in exchange…

As Hinata shuffles under her covers, barely noticing his presence there, Naruto can’t help but let his eyes wander; to the furisode hanging from the ceiling, the only mark of prestige in her room; to the many books filling shelves meticulously; to the weaponry carefully categorised; and to the photographs of her family, of her friends, of her team. And of him.

He’s twelve, scrawny and sunburned, his skin a clear contrast to the white T-shirt he’s wearing as he holds up a flailing toad victoriously. The angle is slightly skewed because Sakura had been exceptionally averse to taking it, and even more disgusted with his antics.

Naruto thinks he understands her a little better now, hiding his mouth under his hand and trying not to be too embarrassed by his childhood self.

…or maybe he’s just embarrassed that’s the picture of him Hinata had chosen to keep.

He almost wishes that he could replace it with something else, something cooler. But that would be intruding too far into her privacy. And something about it must mean something to her, something he doesn’t see but she does.

Perhaps it is just the simpler times.

Perhaps it is something more significant.

Perhaps it is the smile.

Not his smile, but the one he can imagine on her lips as she lifts her head from work to look at the image.

Naruto exhales a sigh, turning away from her desk. He brushes his fingers over her fringe to reveal a clear forehead and smiles fondly down at her face as she sleeps.

“Happy birthday, Hinata.”

He makes sure the window is closed properly, and then he is gone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this first chapter!  
> There’s four more where this one came from, so I hope you’re up for a sappy ride - since this is Naruto and Hinata, we’re talking about!  
> I’ve given these two a lot of thoughts recently, and decided to write this little story about what happens between the war and The Last, mainly because I feel like even if Naruto says he knows Hinata from just looking in her eyes, there is a difference between knowing someone in their everyday lives and understanding how they feel. And I wanted to explore that gap that must’ve been breached.  
> It was difficult, though, because Naruto is so impulsive and quick at grasping his own feelings in relation to others. So keeping him on the fence between feeling and understanding, and understanding and trusting Hinata’s feelings as well, was difficult. Esp when he insisted on (subtly?) flirting with her in later chapters — oops
> 
> Anyway! I hope you’ll stick around!  
> I’m in the middle of my last exams at uni and this was a guilty pleasure/ act of productive procrastination for me. So I should be able to upload once every week, but if I don’t it’s because I’m crying at my laptop, working on my dissertation or preparing for exams.  
> Have fun and if you enjoyed the chapter please do leave your thoughts! I’d love to read them!
> 
> Thank you again!


	2. Chapter 2

A snowstorm covers Konoha in the days that follow. Deep grey clouds cast reflections of themselves in piles and piles of white snow, burying them all and locking the village within the valley, blocking the passes so that no one can come or go.

It doesn’t leave them with silence; the winds roar and roar; like an angry god they grasp the walls of buildings and trees, shaking them for all they’re worth, testing the foundation and finding them too stable to disrupt.

Naruto spends half his time lying on his bed and listening to the rage of the winter weather, and half his time out in it.

The fire Kurama lends him keeps him safe from this particular element, and Kakashi makes good use of him and his many shadow clones. Supplies need handing out to those families who need them—blankets, coal, food and water—and the village defences, though not as crucial anymore, cannot fall.

It is a lonely business, sitting in the snow watching the flakes flurry on the wind, with only a grumpy fox for company. But it is even more lonely coming back home to an apartment he has known for eighteen years, with no life or company, with no one there to greet him or keep him company in the storm.

Naruto is used to combatting that loneliness by going out; he will sit at Ichiraku for hours talking to Teuchi or Ayame, greeting anybody who comes by, listening to news of their lives and missions. He’s used to gettinginto crazy competitions with Lee or Kiba, losing at shogi to Shikamaru, getting yelled at by Tsunade, and practicing taijutsu with just about anybody who is free.

His days are filled with loud yells and laughter, and even if he is often the loudest, he’s good at bringing it out in others, blasting away the deafening silence with a roar of friendship.

But in the silence that rages with the snowstorm there is none of that. There is only himself in a white, white world, and his own thoughts to distract himself from the snow.

And he tries not to think about Hinata.

He thinks about his parents. About Sakura. And Sasuke. About Konoha and where he hopes the village goes from here, hopes for a bright future full of peace and friendship with the other villages. He thinks about the war and about all the people he’s lost.

But as those thoughts begin to intrude, the phantom caress of a hand against his cheek, of a hand held tight in his, chase them away.

It is a clear memory belonging to a hand he no longer possesses.

And Naruto allows himself to fill the silence with thoughts of Hinata.

He wonders if she got enough sleep, if the black rings under her eyes will vanish now that the snows have ensured her time to recover without being sent on new missions.

He wonders if her family celebrated her birthday properly. Does the Hyuuga clan even celebrate birthdays? Hanabi adores her older sister and must have had something prepared.

He wonders if new years is a joyous or a pompous or a solemn occasion for a clan that old. Judging by the furisode hanging in her room, ready for a formal occasion, it must be an important holiday.

Naruto tries not to imagine her in it, dressed in deep purple silks to contrast her pale skin. He tries not to think about her long midnight locks draped up in an artful hairstyle or the way it would uncover her face and her neck.

When he imagines walking behind her with the ability to trace baby hairs down a graceful neck, unhidden by a stiff collar, he jumps to his feet and goes in search of a book so boring and difficult it’ll keep his mind busy until he can go out.

* * *

It’s a relief, the moment the snows stop falling and the skies begin to clear. It’s like breathing again, stepping outside in heavy winter boots and a long coat, to grin at his neighbours and cheerfully greet those busy shovelling snow from the roads.

Naruto stomps his feet with purpose, lobs a half-baked snow ball at a brat half his age, who squeals and retaliates, and determines to go rent out a dojo for the next month or two so he has a place to practice without getting frozen to the bones.

“Thanks, granny!” he says cheerfully as he’s stepping out into the cold half an hour later, waving his key at her with a grin.

“Remember to clean it!” she yells sternly at him.

“Of course! Who do you take me for?”

Naruto slides the door closed on her list of insults, laughing to himself at her creativity.

“Naruto-kun?”

Her voice is a question at first, but before he’s even turned to face her, it takes on the strength of recognition. “Good morning.”

He spins on his heel to face Hinata bathed in the pale glow of a winter sun. Her midnight locks swallow the light, but her deep purple and white Hyuuga furisode glows and her face lights in a gentle smile. “Happy new years.”

Naruto opens his mouth, his lips shaping her name before he’s thought about it.

_Pretty. So pretty._

But his voice evades him momentarily, and he closes his mouth for a smile instead. “Happy new years, Hinata.”

She tilts her head curiously so the jewellery holding up her hair swings against a pale blue sky. “What are you doing so early in the morning?”

He steps closer to join her, his smile growing with mischief, and he swings the key for explanation. “Renting out a dojo. I thought I’d get a headstart before people rush to book them.”

“I see,” she says, a smile curling her lips in return, even as she bows her head and hides it from his view.

Naruto wonders if the flush in her cheeks is for him or the cold, but decides he doesn’t mind competing with the winter. Pink is a colour that suits her; it warms her face, dusting white cheeks to give them life, and he oddly wants to touch it, to share in her warmth.

“What about you?” he asks, stuffing his hand in his pocket. “Where are you off to? On official Hyuuga business?”

He thinks he remembers some old clan traditions, but without his mother’s tutelage they’ve all been lost to history. Without family or connections it is difficult to keep traditions going—especially when there are no one to learn them from, or practice them with in the first place.

But it gets Hinata’s attention, and she turns her elusive pale eyes back on him with a graceful smile. “Yes,” she says, showing off the sake bottle resting in the crook of her her arm. “It’s the eldest daughter’s duty to greet the other clans after the new year, so I’m on my way to visit Shikamaru-kun, but I thought I’d do my own greetings first, so I’ll visit Sakura-chan, Ino-chan, and Tenten-san first.”

“Sakura-chan? This early in the morning?” Naruto grins. “That’s going to be a sight to behold!”

Hinata lifts her free hand to hide her laugh. “You’re welcome to join me, if you’re not busy.”

“Great,” he says. And because he can’t push away her hand so he has a clear view of her smile when she laughs, he plucks the heavy bottle of sake out of her hand instead. “Thanks, Hinata.”

“Ah— Naruto—“ she begins, her smile vanishing. Her hands reach to grab for the bottle.

But Naruto dances out of her reach with ease. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not going to steal it. I’m not a good drinker, anyway. And I’m not in that much trouble with Tsunade-baa-chan these days.”

She opens her mouth as if to protest his reasoning, but closes it again, lowering her gaze. “So long as I get it back before we reach Sakura-san’s,” she allows demurely.

Naruto’s smile falls a little at her docile behaviour. Maybe it’s the formal clothes, he reasons. Or maybe she was just that tired that evening at Ichiraku. But she is quiet again, avoiding his gaze and flushing.

And Naruto thinks he likes the Hinata who speaks her mind better.

“So,” he says, before the silence can become unbearable. “Have you enjoyed your holiday?”

“Holiday?”

“You know,” he says, gesturing to the world in general, “with all this snow, Kakashi-sensei hasn’t been able to force you out on another mission before you’ve even recovered from the last one.”

“Oh,” her mouth forms the shape of the word, but if he hadn’t been looking at it he wouldn’t have heard it. If he hadn’t been looking at her he wouldn’t have seen the open surprise on her face. “I— yes. I slept a long time,” she answers him when she’s recovered.

Naruto nods, but suppresses a victorious smile. He isn’t sure this is a competition, but she doesn’t get to be the only one who pays careful attention anymore. He might not be blessed and cursed with the burden of the Byakugan, but he doesn’t need to see through objects to see through people. And he is beginning to unravel the pages that make up Hyuuga Hinata with more ease.

That doesn’t mean he gets to predict her every move, however, and Hinata plays her own games, eyeing him for a pensive moment before saying.

“Hanabi was surprised to see me.”

“Oh?” Naruto nearly stumbles, and his cheeks burn in a blush he can’t hide under the sun. “Was— was your mission supposed to last longer?”

“No.”

Hinata doesn’t say any more than that, and the words, the questions, rest loudly in the silence between them. There’s a memory in the back of his mind, a phantom of a hand scratching the back of his neck in sheepish confession. But his only remaining hand is busy holding on to the precious Hyuuga sake between them, and he is left defenceless to her scrutiny.

Yet, Hinata takes mercy on him, hiding her laugh behind her long sleeve and lowering her gaze to give him privacy to recover from her observations.

* * *

They don’t speak for the rest of their walk, and the first to truly break the silence is Sakura.

Sakura who opens the door to her family home, wild pink hair sticking up in every direction, and loud mouth snapping at the end of a conversation with an irritation that makes Naruto glad he isn’t a part of it—yet. “Yeah, yeah. I’m doing it. Who bothers to be up this early in the morning any— Oh.”

She blinks at Hinata, the first in the door. “Hinata!” And then she smiles. “Happy new years! What are you doing here?”

Hinata returns her smile with bright affection. “Happy new years, Sakura-san,” she responds,her voice growing in strength and volume in the company of the other girl. “I’m running errands for my father at the occasion and thought I’d drop by to greet you and your family.”

Sakura’s smile grows indulgent and affectionate at the formal way the younger girl speaks about old-fashioned clan duties. She opens her mouth to say something, but only then does her eyes fall on Naruto and her smile falls in turn. “And you,” she says, her voice taking on a tone of experienced annoyance. “You just thought you’d tag along, didn’t you?”

“What?” Naruto complains, sticking his hand in his pocket. He tries and fails not to return her glare. “Is that a problem?”

Sakura sighs heavily. “You really are a blockhead,” she says before stepping aside. “Well, come in, come in. I’m sure mum can find some tea for you!”

They thank her in the door, stepping inside and removing their shoes in the genkan.

“Oh, my! Hinata-chan!” Sakura’s mother says when she sticks her head into the hall, her green eyes glow with stars that the sight of the furisode. “Happy New Years! Out to do official Hyuuga greetings? Oh! And Naruto’s here, too!”

“Yes, but Naruto isn’t here to do new years greetings. He’s just here to borrow a book on chakra manipulations,” Sakura jumps in before either Hinata or Naruto can respond, grabbing his ear and pulling down. “Aren’t you, Naruto?”

And Naruto knows better than to go against the will of his best friend when she is in one of her deadly moods, so he finds a smile through his tears and says. “Yes, yes, absolutely. Is it new years? No way! _Really?_ ”

As Hinata and Sakura’s mother exchange formalities, Sakura lets go of Naruto and sighs in theatric exhaustion.

“That was close,” she whispers.

“Hey, Sakura-chan,” Naruto complains, rubbing his ear. “What’s the big idea?”

Hinata smiles prettily as she responds to something Sakura’s mum is saying. Her head is lifted to meet the other woman’s gaze and the glow of a lamp frames her face in shades of gold.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Sakura sneers. “She’s on _Hyuuga business_.”

Sakura has a way of illustrating his ignorance in a way that feels like he’s had a hood thrown over his head to blind him _and_ a sledgehammer dropped on his head at the same time. And it’s infinitely infuriating to be treated as stupid when the answers would be so easy to just give away.

“ _So what?_ ”

“So what?!” she repeats in an outraged whisper. “So right now she _is_ her clan. Anything she does reflects back on the whole of the Hyuuga clan. By joining her you’re sending some rather inappropriate social messages.”

“Inappropriate?!” Naruto parrots in turn, countering her outrage ounce for ounce. “What’s so inappropriate, accompanying a friend— Oh.”

Sakura rests a hand over her forehead and eyes. “Yes, _oh._ ”

He remembers Hinata lowering her gaze and insisting he give the sake bottle back before they reached the Haruno residence.

“Because the clans work differently.”

“It’s only the first _morning_ of the new year and already I’m exhausted,” Sakura complains.

Naruto sniggers and reaches up to pat her hair flat. “I’ll be in your care once again, Sakura-chan.”

She scoffs, but a smile blossoms on her face in spite of herself. “Same to you, partner.”

They spend the morning drinking tea and relaxing in the Haruno residence. Sakura and her mother fawn over the quality of Hinata’s kimono, and Naruto picks a fight with his best friend over the keys to the dojo he’s just rented. They laugh and joke and bask in the morning sunlight of the new year.

And Naruto has the pleasure of observing the way the formality and shyness slowly seeps out of Hinata in the company of the two women. Her face flushes with natural colour and she speaks with more strength than she does when they’re alone, with conviction and surety as if she isn’t thinking so much about her every word.

He wonders, feeling left out and maybe a little jealous, if this is how she is around all their other friends; still graceful and pretty, but shining with the glow of a morning sun, a light he isn’t privy to.

He wonders what he can do to make himself worthy of that light; if maybe he can do something to make her more comfortable so she’ll shine in his presence, too.

And seeing her smile so comfortably and talk so easily with Sakura, he determines to go through with his plan, even if it’s becoming motivated by more and more selfish feelings the longer he spends with her.

“Here you go,” Sakura says, nocking him gently over the head with the book she’d promised him as part of his cover.

“Thanks,” he says, looking down at the advanced textbook a little helplessly. “I’ll see if I can make good use of it.”

They wave goodbye to her under a sun that has risen to nearly noon light.

“I hope we didn’t take up too much of her time,” Hinata wonders, shuffling with the bottle of sake.

“Well,” Naruto says, glancing back over his shoulder at the closed curtains of his friend’s bedroom, “if she were waiting for somebody, he’s kept her waiting long enough. It’s about time the tables turned.”

Hinata hums under her breath, and when he looks back at her he finds her already watching him. “What?”

She smiles and shakes her head so the jewellery in her hair catches the sunlight and glows momentarily. “You’re a kind friend, Naruto-kun.”

The compliment is a gentle breeze, fingers brushing carefully through his hair, and warms him to his core. And he smiles. “Thanks,” he says, “I guess it takes one to know one.”

And this time he takes her off guard, and reaches her. This time she doesn’t smile demurely and lower her head. This time she lifts her eyes to look at him, wavering between surprise and joy. Her eyes dance, pale like a winter sky, with emotions that overflow.

And Naruto—

Naruto holds his breath. And he waits. And he hopes.

He hopes for a smile or a laugh. He hopes for acceptance and easy companionship. He hopes that she will allow his words to cause her joy, even if they had not meant to move her so.

And when finally, finally her lips stretch in a smile that bends her already red cheeks and makes her eyes crinkle with joy, it is as if the sun returns to him, touches a warm hand to his cold cheek and answers a simple wish he hadn’t realised he’d exhaled on a breath that had evaporated in the winter air.

“Thank you.”

Hinata is pretty, so pretty. But when she willingly offers him a smile, when she deems him worthy of sharing her joy with him, when she relaxes and lets her guard down—because he deserves it—she is so much more than beautiful.

She is the morning sun, reminding him that the night has an end, that the darkness will never last. She is spring warmth and summer joy.

And it doesn’t matter if she’s quiet. It doesn’t matter if shyness paints her cheeks in shades of red.

Because when he works his way—carefully, so carefully—past her defences and makes himself worthy of her time, there is no greater joy than that.

“I have a favour to ask you,” he says, when they stop at a cross roads.

“What is it?”

“Well, actually, it’s more like….” he considers his words and tries the ones that come to mind. “A favour I’d intended to word as an exchange.”

“What do you mean?"

He scratches his cheek, embarrassed somehow to admit his shortcomings in front of someone so flawless.

“You know how Tsunade-baa-chan is attempting to cram as much knowledge into my head as possible?” A nod. “Well, just like back in school it’s not really making sense, a lot of it. And I thought I might ask you for help since you always know what you’re doing. Only—“

He finds a smile through his awkwardness and does his best to ignore the way his cheeks burn under her gaze. “Only that doesn’t really sound very cool. Relying on your help again. So I thought I might offer something in return that I know I’m good at and I’m sure you could benefit from.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” she says, and he can’t tell if she’s being sincere or if she’s teasing him. “I can think of more than one thing you’re good at, after all.”

Ok.

Ok.

So she’s being sincere.

_Okay._

Naruto’s heart skips in his chest and his face grows unmistakably hot against the winter chill. Suddenly it’s almost too painful to look at her, and he directs his face upwards instead, scratching the back of his neck so he has a moment to hide behind his elbow from her all-seeing eyes.

“Well,” he says, laughing to mask the way his voice trembles, “in this case I meant for practice. That’s why I rented out the dojo.” He lowers his arm just slightly so he can peer down at her reaction. “So we could practice together.”

Hinata blinks up at him, eyes growing wide and mouth opening slightly in astonishment at his suggestion. The chill of winter pinches her cheeks in a pretty blush and she doesn’t look at all like a warrior; not in her refined Hyuuga furisode; not with ornaments in her hair. Not until she smiles a smile at his suggestion that makes it seem more like a challenge than a cry for help.

And she nods.

“Sure!” She says. “If I can help make the road towards your goal just a little easier, I’m happy to do whatever I can.”

And for the first time today Naruto hates the Hyuuga furisode she wears; hates it because he can’t reach out and engulf her in a hug. It takes everything in him to keep himself in place, to not race forwards and hold her close. It takes everything he’s got to deny himself and the rush of emotion that moves him.

Instead he smiles and hopes it reads, clear as day, in his eyes.

“Thank you, Hinata! You’re the best!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot about my usual practice of uploading the first two chapters on the same day!   
> Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter! I hope you had fun with it and this one as well!  
> I actually meant this chapter to just be a couple lines leading into the main plot, but it ended up being so fun--especially writing Sakura--that I ended up making it a whole chapter on its own! It also worked way better to introduce the emotional motivations for most of naruto's actions from here on out!
> 
> The conflict in this chapter is largely borrowed from the new years episode of Hyouka, which also very much discusses the duties and roles that daughters representing old noble-coded families ought to fulfil in public.  
> The Hyuuga Problem in naruto and the way Naruto weaves into it is really fascinating to me, and I would like to explore it some day in more depth, but for this fic you will see it pop up more subtly as a source of emotional conflict rather than outright conflict, and this was a good place to start.
> 
> Thank you for reading this chapter as well! I hope you enjoyed it, and I would love to hear your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

For the first time in his life, Naruto spends the days that follow the new year cleaning his flat.

The small rooms, the creaky bed, the old kitchen sink that bursts into mutiny every other week, have been a lonely home to him for his entire life. At times he has thought of it as a prison and at other times a sanctuary. Sometimes it’s just a place to sleep, at others it is a place to grieve without witnesses.

Once, it’s been a place of cheer and celebration; when Sakura, Kiba, Ino and Sai had collaborated to throw him a surprise party for his birthday.

He’d turned eighteen and the war had been over for only half a year.

Naruto still finds confetti from the occasion and every time he does it makes him grin at the memories.

But he’s never fully taken the time to wash everything down, air out the futon, and remove all traces of instant ramen from flat surfaces.

The copies of Jiraiya’s books he wraps carefully in paper, ties a string to keep them in place and hides them behind a row of ninjutsu books on his top shelf. Even though he knows Hinata can see through anything, he hopes she won’t go out of her way to look through his collection like that. He trusts that she won’t; it’s Hinata, after all.

Kurama laughs himself into a fit when Naruto takes the time to purchase a kotatsu for the occasion, leaving Naruto flushing all the way home at the stupid fox’s mockery.

“Shut up,” he hisses as he kicks the door closed behind him where no one can hear him talking to himself. “Not everyone has a demon fox to keep them warm in winter.”

 _“You’re really taking proper care of your princess there,”_ comes the smug response.

And Naruto’s face flushes again.

“Shut up. It’s not like that.”

_“Sure.”_

“I said it’s not like that,” Naruto insists. “Oi!”

But the fox closes his eyes in his reservoir and turns his side to Naruto, pretending to go back to sleep. And Naruto gives him up as a bad job, knowing very well that Kurama isn’t going to have much of an effect on his relationship with Hinata, being stuck inside his body as he is.

“It’s not like that,” Naruto murmurs to no one but himself, unfolding the fluffy futon over the table and its electric heater not many minutes later.

He gets paid a decent salary these days, but the kotatsu is definitely the nicest thing in his scruffy little home. The table is made of a pale birch wood, not too bright on the eyes, and probably light enough in colour that he won’t be able to hide any stains. The futon is a matching light blue with motifs of frogs, jumping or sitting or swimming, repeated in a pattern across the fabric.

He spends the evening studying under it, and, much as the curse foretold, he falls asleep under the delicious warmth of the heater.

* * *

So he’s not exactly prepared when there’s a knock on the door the next morning.

He stumbles out from under the covers in his crumbled white T-shirt and bedhead, still yawning hugely when he opens the door.

Hinata straightens, her shoulders going up under her winter coat, the fur catching the light of the sun, and her cheeks are flushed an adorable pink.

“Good morning, Naruto-kun.”

He thinks her eyes are dancing.

“’Morning,” he responds, his cheer already rising .

“Am I early?” she inquires, and when she tilts her head curiously her midnight locks are swinging.

And Naruto, still sleepy and slightly sore from his rest on the floor below the kotatsu, only catches himself when his hand is halfway across the distance between them, following the urge to push her hair behind her ear.

He manages to misdirect his hand in the last moment so it lands on her shoulder instead.

Hinata’s muscles are tense below the layers of clothes she uses to keep warm and she looks up at him with wide eyes.

“Naruto-kun?”

“Hinata,” he responds with near mock solemnity. And then he bows his head with a theatric sigh. “I really didn’t know how comfortable a kotatsu was until I bought one yesterday. Have I really been robbed of this simple pleasure my entire life?!”

Naruto wonders if she will buy it, if he’s given something away by crossing the distance between them; if maybe he’s crossed a line she didn’t want crossed. He wonders if touching the Hyuuga princess is allowed within the compound or if she is comfortable with hugs and pats on the head. He wonders if this will ruin the quiet equilibrium, the balance in their relationship that makes him feel assured she won’t start fainting on him out of shyness again; a balance that he’s already testing by inviting her into his home.

But then she begins to laugh, quiet and graceful, like winter bells breaking free from under the snow.

And Naruto—

Naruto holds his breath.

Naruto lifts his head as slowly as he can, fear and curiosity guiding his actions. He doesn’t want her to stop laughing, but he desperately, desperately wants see the joy on her face.

When he gets there, when his eyes lift just enough to see the blue sky behind her and the flush of natural cheer in her cheeks he is blinded by the smile on her face. Hinata isn’t pretty. Nothing so childlike or girlish could define her.

No.

Naruto can hear his heart beating in-between her laughter.

Hinata is beautiful.

And for a moment, a single moment, he wishes he could hear her laugh like that every single day for the rest of his life.

“Well,” she says, tilting her head again. “I’m afraid I’ll have to inform you that you have indeed been robbed of joy beholden to you, if you’ve only just bought a kotatsu now. May I see it?”

And like one of his father’s special Jutsu, a smile flashes across Naruto’s face. “Absolutely,” he says, retreating and waving her inside.

She bows in the genkan, to the house, and murmurs a quiet “sorry to intrude,” graceful and polite as no one has ever been before in his home before.

It is odd, already, to have her here. The door closes behind her, and she seems so out of place, as if she doesn’t belong there, too beautiful, with her locks of ink threading over her shoulders and brushing through the bristles of her coat. Elegant and refined, she belongs somewhere more pristine, somewhere where she might be treasured better.

But then she drops her bag at her feet and removes her coat, and he sees the bandages running up her arm before the sleeve of her sweater falls back down to cover them.

Her eyes take in every single detail in his hall with a care and respect he doesn’t expect, drinking in details of his life he had nearly forgotten. She notices the starved frog wallet beside his keys, and the old scruffy scarf he hasn’t used in forever. She notices the kunai, shuriken, and scrolls collected in a basket in a corner by his summer sandals. As she passes his open closet her fingers lift to brush the orange jacket he’d grown out of at age fourteen.

But she stops, flushes and turns her eyes back to him, almost afraid to have been caught.

Hinata always sees everything around her. But he wonders if she ever sees the way others see her.

Naruto doesn’t think so.

“Thanks,” he says. “For coming today.”

The addition is a lie.

Is unnecessary.

There are so many other things he wants to thank her for, but Naruto thinks it would be too overwhelming. Maybe.

He wishes she weren’t so shy around him.

But he knows he needs to tread carefully to make it come true. This is not a battle he can win with his fists, after all. It is, in fact, quite the opposite.

Hinata smiles. “Of course.”

After that she is all business. While he prepares tea in his tiny kitchen, she settles under the kotatsu to study his assignments and the progress he’s made with them. She hums quietly to herself as she works, not quite a melody, but a habit of filling the silence around her.

It brings a smile to Naruto’s face as he rummages for two mugs that might be relatively alike. He’s never liked the silence around him either, and though he’s been much better at filling it with laughter and loud shouts, this feels so much more powerful.

It’s not a conversation. It’s not the exchange of opinions or the small talk of everyday life. It is not quite friendship.

It is the presence of another, filling empty spaces and lonely rooms with a subtlety that is just enough to make it seem like they had never been empty in the first place.

When he turns back around Hinata has spread his papers out over the table, piling new books and scrolls at the corners, and sticking colourful pieces of paper to pages in his notebooks with additions and commentary.

It almost makes him laugh.

“You work fast,” he observes.

She flashes him a quick smile, her eyes delineating from her work to watch him as he approaches with the trey of tea and water.

“Thank you.”

He pauses to replace the glasses of water for his parents and the cup of sake for Jiraiya before sitting down beside her and catching her eye.

“That’s my line.”

Naruto expects a flash of humor at his words and maybe hopes he gets to share a smile with her, but instead her smile falls and she turns her whole body to face him, to regard him with her full attention.

“Do you really think you’re unintelligent, Naruto-kun?”

The question catches him off guard, and he pulls back a little, his fingers trembling at the edge of his tea cup.

“I mean—“ and defensive laughter bubbles up from somewhere in his chest, somewhere that strains and hurts. “Compared to you, or Sakura-chan, or Shikamaru? It’s not as if I was ever good at anything in school, and everyone always tells me I’m dense or an idiot.”

Hinata tilts her head and listens to his laughter until it fades, her eyes studying his face as if she sees through him.

“You are pretty dense,” she agrees, but there is such fondness to the insult that he can’t even be hurt. “But I don’t think you’re an idiot. No one is really an idiot, or useless, or a failure until other people start telling them that they are.

“Maybe,” and now her expression brightens with an epiphany, “maybe it’s just that you never had anyone to help you figure out the trick to studying.”

Naruto blinks down at her again. “The trick?”

Hinata nods with such emphasis that her hair bobs, and he thinks he’s never seen anything as cute in his life.

She grabs a pencil and twirls it between her fingers. “There’s a trick to everything, right? A balancing point that makes things flow, that makes a jutsu come to life, or a conversation go the way you want it to. No matter the problem, there’s always a solution. You just need to figure out the trick to seeing it.”

Hinata meets his gaze straight on, and Naruto is impressed, is amazed, is enchanted by her mind and her reasoning, by how caught up she is in what she’s doing that she’s _looking_ at him and talking to him without faltering.

“How do you usually handle a difficult opponent?”

Naruto opens and closes his mouth, trying to find his voice. The first thing that comes to mind is a joke, a brush-off. But Hinata isn’t the type to let ‘with my fists’ go, and he’ll have to explain himself eventually.

“I—“ he scratches the back of his head, trying to collect his thoughts, “I test different things, trying to tell the pattern in their strategies and movements. But everything happens so quickly on the battlefield, it’s not as if I have time to think clearly.”

He looks helplessly down to all the papers and the things he doesn’t quite get, his hand coming to rest on the back of his neck as he contemplates the workload before him, a little helplessly.

A hand touches gently on his elbow, nudging it down and drawing his attention back on her.

“Studying’s like that, too,” Hinata tells him kindly. “When you’ve done it enough times, you’ll be able to do it instinctively. You don’t think before you form seals or write down characters, right? You just do it. Learn to find the patterns in this too, and you’ll know the solution.”

“It’s that simple?”

Naruto feels like he’s been in this situation before, staring dubiously down at her and wondering if she’s tricking him into believing something he thought impossible was easy. But he’s learnt so much about Hinata since the first chuunin exams, and he sees the confidence in her pale eyes now; the confidence in him and in her own answer.

Hinata knows what is right and she doesn’t question that knowledge anymore.

“Of course,” she says, and smiles. “But it still requires effort.”

Naruto grins. “Effort I can definitely manage!”

And finally, finally she blesses him with another laugh.

“Alright,” Hinata says, her voice still trembling around her cheer, “let’s start with math. That’s the easiest to demonstrate with.”

* * *

They begin to settle into a comfortable routine. While the snow blocks the passes and keeps the village permanently isolated from the rest of the world, Hinata visits twice a week, mostly to answer questions or problems he’s had the other days, but also to sit with him while he studies so that when he has problems she’s there in the immediate vicinity to help him.

It is frustrating at first, to be so helpless and to feel so stupid, trying to figure out how her method works. But slowly over time the puzzle pieces begin to form a picture, a promise of success.

“—and I realised,” he’s saying, when he’s recounting a particular epiphany, “that if I read the first line and the last line of every paragraph in that one economics book Tsunade-baa-chan lent me, that I’d get the whole point of the paragraph!”

“Exactly,” she agrees and the pride in her expression is the greatest praise he could have ever received.

“And then, and then! Get this, Hinata,” he continues, enthused and wanting to impress her. “I realised that the overall construction of the chapters were the same! So I could read the introduction and the conclusion before I read the whole text, and I wouldn’t struggle with trying to figure out what they were trying to say, and could focus on deconstructing their arguments and getting the essential facts instead!”

She beams at him, and Naruto thinks she is the best teacher he’s ever had. Iruka and Tsunade might have had expectations of him, but they had seen his father in his blonde hair and his mother in his energy, and he had never measured up to the adult standards. Even Kakashi and Jiraiya had focused on what he was missing, not what he was accomplishing; treating him to new lessons as a job-well-done, rather than reminding him how far he’d already come.

And Naruto wants to thank her again and again for her faith in him, for knowing him well enough to see what he needs, for taking the time and for not giving up.

But those words come dangerously close to a different conversation, one he’s still—

Hinata’s stomach growls in sudden complaint, and her face flushes bright red.

“Ma-maybe it’s time I head home,” she says, hiding her face from him, by rummaging through her bag to ensure she has everything.

She is so sweet and adorable, and so human beyond her grace, and Naruto doesn’t really want her to go anywhere.

The day is still young, and if he can convince her to spend more time with him, he’ll do his best to succeed there, as well.

“Why not stay?”

She lifts her head in astonishment, as if she hadn’t even considered it an option, as if she thinks she’s only here to tutor him.

“Or if you’d prefer to eat something other than cup ramen we could go out to find something,” he offers, brightening his smile because he is stubborn about this, and he’s going to get his way and shatter her politeness just a little bit more. “It’ll be my treat, as thanks.”

This time when she blushes, he swears he sees clouds of steam evaporating from her face.

“Here…” she begins very quietly and lowers her head to hide her face. She takes a deep breath to have strength to speak, but it doesn’t help anything. “Here is fine.”

Her ears stickout like burning lights from under the curtain of night, a bashful declaration of emotion that she cannot hide anymore. Because Naruto insists on noticing, on paying attention the same way she has been paying attention to him; because Naruto has already seen her beyond the curtain of night, and he knows it is only her shyness and insecurities that keep her from smiling always in the sun.

Because Naruto heard her, even when no one else did. Because he heard her say; “I am selfish. And I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

Because he saw her raise her head.

So he slides his hand under her midnight locks and lifts them just enough that when he bends his body he can see her face, and smile at her. “Sounds great!”

Hinata blinks at him, wide-eyed and astonished, and forgets to blush at his boldness, at his intrution. Instead her smile slowly begins to grow, and like a flower at dawn, she lifts her head slowly. Her hair trickles from between his fingers like drops of water, and he lets the silk slide, resisting the urge to hold on until he is empty-handed save for her smile and her laughter.

* * *

It is oddly domestic with Hinata around.

While he boils the water for his pauper’s meal, she clears the table of a different future, humming again as she works.

And Naruto tries not to think about the tired tatami below their feet, or the sun catching in her wellworn knitted sweater. He tries not to imagine that she is as old as his home, tries to ignore the romantics of his own thoughts; that she has belonged here for as long as he has been here.

And he is grateful, when she slides in beside him to refill two glasses with fresh water.

“Where do you keep the sake for Jiraiya-sama?”

“Here.”

He produces it from a cupboard above their heads and she accepts it with silent thanks.

“How do you even get your hands on this?” she wonders, accepting the small porcelain bottle. “You’re not twenty-one yet.”

“Ah,” Naruto glares ahead of him at the memory. “Tsunade-baa-chan forces me to keep her company when she drinks. I take it as payment for having to drag her home every other night, and I know the old pervert would prefer alcohol over water.”

Hinata hides her laugh behind her hand before retreating with the trey now populated by offerings to his family’s ghosts. She carefully replaces the glasses of water and pours the sake by the picture frames, and when she’s done she connects her palms and closes her eyes to greet them.

And Naruto—

Naruto wonders if his heart will break someday at how kind and how beautiful she is. He wonders if he will be able to take that pain when the future becomes the present. He wonders if he can let go of the quiet joy she bestows on him without breaking apart in her shadow.

But for now, he steps up to her to smile down at his parents; at calm Minato and bright Kushina. To smile at his master, the man who taught him that he had real reason to be proud of himself, to stride towards his goals without pausing or doubting himself.

“Where did you find these?” Hinata wonders, brushing her fingers over the frame holding Minato and Kushina’s smiling faces.

“After the war I started asking around for pictures of them,” Naruto explains. “And now I have more than one photo album filled with pictures of them.”

“I’m happy for you.”

It startles him; the overwhelming joy, like sunshine in her voice. And when he looks down at her, her smile is the brightest, is the kindest he has ever seen. Unselfishly, she has always been there somewhere in his sorrow and his isolation; and insecure, she has never felt like she belonged in his story.

But she intrudes to share in his joy, to make brighter the good moments.

And Naruto—

Naruto lifts his single hand to the back of his neck, to laugh, to speak more loudly than he needs to.

Because if he doesn’t, if he lets his emotions carry him as they are prone to, he will catch her in a hug and hide in her midnight locks, and he will never let go of her again.

And grief is not the emotion he wants to move him, grief is not his starting point.

“I met them, you know,” he says, and when she blinks in confusion he says, “man, Uzumaki sealing jutsu are amazing. When they sealed Kurama inside me, they left some of their chakra there as well, full of memories, so that we would meet again.”

“What were they like? Yondaime-sama and Uzumaki-san?”

Naruto hums in thought, considering her question. “Dad was to the point, but super cool,” he says. “But not in a fake way like Sasuke. He didn’t try to seem greater than he was. He just took up the room naturally and always did everything that he could. He also had a tendency of letting his guard down around people he was attached to.”

That last comment makes Hinata laugh behind her hand again. “And your mother? She looks really beautiful.”

“She was!” he agrees, and laughs. “I’m glad I take mostly after her. Makes me feel like a proper Uzumaki! Even if I don’t have the hair.”

He pulls on his fringe, still too long for his liking.

“The Uzumaki clan isn’t originally of Konoha, right?” Hinata observes, her eyes bending kindly as she looks at his parents. “Maybe Yondaime-sama’s colouring just means that now the Uzumaki clan truly belongs to Konoha, and nowhere else.”

Naruto opens his mouth to respond to her reasoning, but his heart swells in his chest, painfully, and he snaps it closed again. His eyes burn. She’d placed a claim on him so naturally and made his birth have new significance; and just like that she’d given new meaning to his family, to all that he is and was. From the very start.

Hinata is amazing.

Naruto brushes his eyes with his single hand so he’s sure he won’t cry, and Hinata watches his parents silently, giving him the illusion of privacy.

Finally, he remembers to answer her question about his mother. “Oh! But I think even without dad, mum managed to integrate herself fully into the village,” he says. “She was bullied a lot as a kid for being an outsider, but she just beat them to a pulp herself.”

“Sounds like somebody I know.”

Naruto laughs. “Yeah,” he agrees, pauses and then realises. “Actually, now that I think about it she reminds me a lot about Sakura-chan, too.”

Hinata blinks and looks up at him for an explanation. “Really?”

“Yeah!” he answers brightly. “You know how I am? And you know how Sakura-chan is? Mum is somewhere in-between. So it makes Sakura feel even more like a sister than she already did!”

Hinata’s pale eyes grow wide and the politeness falls off her face as she stares up at him in bewilderment. “Sis—Eh? But—“

But the kitchen alarm dings, and Naruto turns around to grab their two bowls of instant ramen, humming out of tune. “Time to feed the hungry monster in Hinata’s stomach.”

He grins at her over his shoulder so her face grows as red as his mother’s hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gosh.  
> Thank you so so much for all your kind words, and for reading this fic! I really wasn't expecting it to get any attention with how long the series has been completed (naruto anyway), so I was so happily surprised to find that it got a readership T.T
> 
> This chapter covers most of what was my original intention for this story; Naruto studying as part of becoming Hokage and Hinata helping him with that. But of course the plot and the things I thought they could do expanded from there.  
> Naruto is very much a creative, coming-up-with ideas kind of character, so I've never really thought of him as stupid (not to mention the reason why he's called stupid in-show don't even have anything to do with actual intelligence, or even memorisation, but are much more about access to information than anything he could do anything about), and I hope that came across in his interactions with Hinata and how she sees him as well.
> 
> I've been rewatching more of the original series recently, especially the chuunin exams, and there were so much I hadn't picked up on, when I'd watched Naruto more than ten years ago, but has since made me So Much More protective of him. Kishi really is a great writer (even if his pacing is kinda shit...) so I'm looking forwards with continuing the series.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did please leave a comment!!  
> Stay safe and see you next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

Something changes as the days pass. The snow continues to fall in a gentle, unending flow. The village continues to sleep through the winter, fiery will nearly extinguished and sticking to the hearth of home until spring. Tsunade continues to take him out to drink and lecture him on the duties of the hokage. Ichiraku’s ramen continues to be a hot consolation at the end of a cold day.

But three weeks after her birthday, Hinata drops by his flat un-expected, dumps several bags at her feet and brushes her hair free of snow so it dances in a flurry to the floor in the genkan. And when she looks up, she’s wearing a determined expression on her face.

“Take a break from academics today,” she says, as she pulls her coat off, and lifts it in his general direction.

Naruto, still barefooted and in his night shirt, stares down at her, dumbfounded at her sudden presence. “Huh?”

“I’m going to teach you how to cook.”

“ _Huh?_ ”

Hinata rummages through one of the bags and produces two pairs of fluffy slippers, dropping them at their feet and slipping into the purple pair.

Naruto stares openmouthed after her, as she hurries past him, her hair flying in a high pony tail just below his nose so he has to fight not to grab for her.

“Hinata!” he exclaims a little desperately.

She sticks her head out of the door to the kitchen. “Slippers and bags, Naruto-kun.”

Her smile is a flash and an invitation, before she’s vanished into his kitchen again.

“I’m— I’m fine,” he insists, following her with the load she’d left him dangling from his hands. “I’ve always been fine. I don’t need to learn to—“

“Of course, you need to learn to cook,” she chides, throwing his cupboards open for emphasis to reveal towering packages of instant ramen. “I don’t know what Sandaime-sama or the elders were thinking, leaving a boy to fend for himself. I’m amazed you didn’t die of starvation. Honestly!”

And it occurs to him that she is angry.

It doesn’t enter her voice and she doesn’t turn suddenly violent or punishing. But the anger radiates from her in waves, as if she is emitting chakra into the air—and somehow it is more intimidating.

“Uh— Hinata—“ he hesitates. “You’re not going to throw all my ramen out, are you?”

“Of course not,” she says, taking a step towards him. “It takes time to learn to cook.”

Naruto almost takes a step back in a reflection of her movements, but stops himself.

And Hinata squats before him to rummage through the bags he’d helped her carry in, producing Tupperware boxes filled with pre-prepared food and side-dishes.

“But I want you to add these to your meals from now on, okay?”

Naruto frowns before kneeling beside her. When he opens a box he finds it full of the kind of meat, eggs and vegetables that Teuchi always adds to his traditionally cooked ramen. The feast is beautiful.

“Hinata…”

Naruto slams a hand over his mouth and looks up at her with big watery blue eyes.

“You didn’t have to,” he says, voice muffled.

But Hinata hears him just fine, tilting her head and smiling indulgently at his expression.

“I wanted to.”

If it weren’t for all the food she’d painstakingly taken the time to prepare for him he would’ve jumped forwards to hug her. But he won’t disrespect her work or her effort. So instead he slowly lowers his hand, his eyes still burning and smiles at her so hugely that his cheeks burn with it.

“Thank you.”

Hinata returns his smile, and they sit there, smiling at each other, until it turns to laughter on their lips, silly and almost childlike in the tiny kitchen.

They spend the morning setting up food in his fridge and cookbooks in his window-sill. Hinata teaches him how to recognise fresh meat and old meat, the basics of dating and freezing rations, how to use knives properly (apparently you’re not allowed to cut vegetables with the same knife you’ve used for meat, who would’ve known?), and nods with satisfaction when she sees that he knows how to fry food and cook rice.

Naruto isn’t nearly as good as she is at any of the things she shows him, but he’s pleased that he can at least impress her enough not to despair.

But it’s occurring to him how much basic knowledge he doesn’t have, how much effort goes into maintaining a healthy household and lifestyle, and he can see the distress behind the calm in her eyes, behind the joy she finds in the tasks.

“I’m surprised you know so much about cooking, though,” he comments, to pull the attention off of him.

“Hm? Why?”

“Well,” he says, letting go of the knife in his hand to scratch the back of his neck, “you’d think the Hyuuga princess wouldn’t need to learn something like that.”

Hinata shakes her head. “I’m no princess,” she says, “that’s my sister. My father disowned me when I finished at the academy.”

“What?!”

He bristles at clan politics.

“It’s fine,” she says serenely. “I knew it was coming for a long time, and it was a relief to be free of the burden.”

Naruto opens his mouth to let go of the anger he feels on her behalf at having been so carelessly thrown away, but something else occurs to him; a flash of green across a forehead.

And he drops the knife again.

Impulsive and easily driven by emotions, he pushes her fringe up over her forehead to check the skin there, to make sure her family hasn’t cursed her to be another bird in a cage.

But he’s met only by clear skin, unblemished by old control, and the fear dissipates instantly.

Naruto exhales a sigh of relief and brushes his thumb carefully over her forehead. “You’re still free,” he murmurs.

When Hinata doesn’t immediately answer, he wrenches his eyes away from her forehead to look down at her eyes, only to notice the red that’s burning its way up her face.

“Ah!” he exclaims, jumping away from her, flailing. “Sorry! I didn’t— I didn’t think! I didn’t mean to— I was just—”

Hinata seems to make a conscious effort to reign in her embarrassment, and when her smile spreads across her face it trembles at the edges of her lips. “It’s—“ she hesitates, pulling her hair behind her ear. Her voice is nothing more than a whisper. “I don’t mind.”

And Naruto—

Naruto knows how much she fights her insecurities and her shyness, knows how strong she has already become.

So he makes a conscious effort to take a step closer to her, to gently grasp her elbow. _It’s ok. I’m here now. I can hear you._

Hinata looks up at the gesture and meets his gaze. Her cheeks are still flushed and her eyes are dancing, fullof insecure attachment. But he knows her, and he trusts that she can see the emotions in his eyes; the support he’s extending to her.

_Your voice matters._

“Neji-nii-san’s sacrifice woke father up,” she tells him. “Or it’s Hanabi’s rage. So he’s fighting the elders to end the curse on the branch families, and to remove the seals on all those who are still trapped.”

And he sees it in her; the way she isn’t thinking of her own fate, of the cage waiting to trap her and threatening to clip her wings. She’s only thinking of those already suffering under a fate they didn’t have the power to avoid.

She’s forgetting herself again.

But Naruto won’t.

And he insists on reminding her.

“Hanabi’s grown up well,” he says, his fingers grasping her elbow a little tighter. “She wouldn’t let her beloved older sister suffer such a fate.”

“No,” Hinata agrees with a pained smile, “she is too mischievous and rebellious.”

Naruto grins. “That’s a good thing!”

Hinata laughs. “I know,” she agrees, and brushes her hair from her face with her free hand.

And Naruto thinks they disagree on one important point; she is a princess.

* * *

Of course, being a princess in Konoha means you’re one of the most terrifying people around.

There’s a sign on the door to the dojo that says property damage will result in a slow and painful death. So Naruto and Hinata share a look and silently agree to only use simple ninjutsu during their practice sessions.

That means, whatever Naruto had thought was going to happen, he’d forgotten what it means to face a Hyuuga at what is essentially full power.

Hinata ducks his high kick with the ease of a person used to being the shortest in a match, dancing out of his reach, before coming closer with lightning speed. And Naruto has to dance to her rhythm, block her gentle fist, one for one, guard up and on his toes.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Kurama is laughing at his hubris.

And then she ducks a punch, her midnight locks curving in the air right in front of his face, and lands a hit right over his stomach, blocking a vital access point to the fox.

_“Oi, oi,”_ Kurama complains. _“Don’t bring me into this.”_

It’s like trying to catch air, sparring with Hinata. One moment she is there. The next she is gone. And every time he reaches for her she slips between his fingers, moulds into something new and inattainable. It makes him wonder if she is even real.

But Naruto laughs at his complaining companion, openly and without fear of retaliation, and Hinata falters at his smile. The Byakugan diminishes for a single moment as her eyes widen to see sunshine on the surface.

Naruto takes advantage of the opening and throws a series of quick punches, setting Hinata on the defensive. But she catches that, too; the kick he aims at her chin, throwing his leg back down; and when he jumps for a better vantage point, she slams her palm into his stomach, absorbing and redirecting the force of his movement, and flips him onto the floor, back first.

For a single moment they stare at each other, catching their breaths.

“Having fun?”

Hinata’s hand is still resting on his stomach, her hair is hanging around them like a curtain, resting around his head and blocking out the world.

“Maybe a little.”

Naruto grins.

He rolls back and boops her nose carefully with his big toe. Hinata’s cheeks turn bright red and she pulls back to cover her face, midnight locks flying in her wake. And Naruto laughs, free to jump to his feet.

He spins around and holds down his hand for her to take.

Hinata blinks up at him, the byakugan diminishing entirely in response to the gesture. Shyly she reaches up to grasp his hand, calloused and elegant fingers sliding over his palm and into his grasp.

“This,” Naruto begins, enchanted by how easily she trusts him, how much she smiles in his company these days.

His fingers close around her wrist, and he grins with the mischief of a plan executed successfully.

And just as his expression turns to glee, Hinata blinks in confusion, seeing the trap for what it is.

“Is revenge!” Naruto declares, stepping in and using his shoulder to throw her clear into the air.

“Kyah—!” Hinata’s scream of surprise and protest turns to laughter at his prank. And Naruto barely has time to dance out of the way at the two kunai sent his way.

When he spins on his heel to search for her, she’s squatting high up on the wall, the Byakugan fully activated again to watch his every move. Her midnight locks trickle down over a single shoulder, framing her face, pink from exercise and smile held in place in spite of the way it dances among the chakra of her eyes.

Well, if she’s going to play dirty in retaliation…

Naruto forms the hand seals for his signature move, preparing to counter her vantage point, and—

“Why you little—“

Nothing happens.

Naruto looks down at his arm to see small red marks from where she’d blocked his chakra network without him even noticing.

“When did you even—?”

Hinata laughs from high above him. “You’ve gotten faster,” she observes, pulling her hair back over her shoulder so he can only see her victorious smile.

_Amazing. She’s amazing._

Hinata jumps from her vantage point, spinning in a somersault before falling right before him, leg coming down towards his head. Naruto bends in the knees, catching her leg and absorbing the blow. He grabs her ankle and throws her back into the air, she spins, dancing on her other foot, and lands a series of kicks down his back.

“But you’ve been neglecting your taijutsu,” she chides.

Instead of countering the force of her blow, Naruto allows it to carry him forward and he rolls over the floor, throwing a leg out and hooking his foot around her ankle to pull her down.

Hinata lands with an ‘ _Oompf_!’ on her back.

And before she can get her guard back up Naruto throws himself down beside her, gasping for air.

“That’s so unfair,” he complains. And then he grins at the ceiling. “Man, I forgot the Hyuuga style is the strongest taijutsu style in the village!”

Beside him, Hinata giggles softly at his admittance. “It is a style that’s easy to overlook among the flashy ninjutsu that others specialise in.”

And Naruto winces at the critique, gently but expertly administered to make him aware that he is only seeing the surface where he ought to look deeper. “Sorry.”

Hinata shakes her head and sits up. “I—“ she hesitates, her voice faltering, and she looks down at her hands.

Naruto rolls into a sitting position beside her so he can better face her.

Hinata has this habit of getting carried away with what she’s doing. If she’s helping him study, or if she’s cooking, or sparring with him, she becomes free and lighthearted. The focus frees her from the worries that hamper her and she communicates with him naturally. But as soon as she stops focusing, as soon as they pause or take a break, he can see the way her eyes flicker and she relives her actions, checking them and finding fault in them, regretting them.

“What is it?”

Hinata bites her lip and she fights the fear of direct confrontation.

Naruto clenches his fist at his side, holding himself back from noticeably cheering her on.

And it is a relief when her brows furrow and she looks up, determination in her eyes. “At new years,” she says, catching her breath at the loudness in her voice and reigning herself in. “You said that this was an exchange of … of favours? Why?”

Naruto blinks at her. “Why?”

“Yes,” she insists, her cheeks flushing for a different reason, and her voice falls. “I— you must’ve known I would never say no to anything you might ask of me.”

She lowers her eyes, and he thinks she’s hiding from him again.

It is a confession all on its own, and Naruto takes in her words, committing her tone of voice and the meaning behind those words to memory.

He forgets too easily.

Forgets who she is. And who he is to her.

Naruto has never been precious to another living person in his life, so it is easy to forget that he is precious to her. It is easy to get lulled into forgetting, because he has no idea how to respond to her feelings, how to treat her with the care she deserves.

And Naruto forgot that Hinata _is_ strength.

“Ah!” He exclaims, so suddenly and so loudly Hinata jumps. “ _I’m such an idiot!_ “

“Eh?!”

She begins to protest the sentiment, but Naruto cuts her off by holding his hand up in a motion of apology.

“All this time I’ve just been acting on my own pride,” he says, bowing his head. “And as a result I underestimated you. I’m sorry, Hinata.

“I don’t do well with academics,” he continues, trying to explain himself, trying to make sense of his own actions. “And one teacher—even if it was Tsunate-baa-chan—wasn’t enough and I thought that was soooooo uncool. So when I asked you for help I couldn’t stand how that would look to you, so I just had to open my stupid mouth and suggest that exchange, even though that put your abilities down at the same time.”

Naruto can hear his heart counting the seconds between his confession and her response. When she remains silent, he slowly lifts his head to look up at her through his locks.

And what meets him there makes him almost angry.

Hinata retracts her hand, a hand she’d reached out to touch him with, to smile awkwardly, insecurely at him. And Naruto can see her response, her confusion, in her eyes before she ever gives word to it.

Her lack of self-confidence.

“Ah, it’s okay, Naruto-kun,” she says, cradling her hand between them. “I’m not really… anyway…”

“Of course, you are!” he counters, springing forward to grasp that hand before she can lower her face and raise her defences, to hide from him where he cannot see her again. _Again._ “You’re amazing, Hinata.”

That’s part of the problem, after all.

How amazing she is to him.

He has never stopped to watch her, never slowed down to catch her out of the corner of his eye. But if he closes his eyes he can still imagine her, as clear as day, practicing her gentle fist again and again and again until her hands drew blood, until her palms needed bandaging.

Focused and desperate to improve, to change, to become _better._

Naruto splays out her fingers and traces the proof of her success in her palm.

“I kept imagining that you needed a hero,” he says, “that you needed protection; that if I helped you practice some of my strength would transfer to you and I wouldn’t have to worry about you when you were out of my sight. But you never needed that strength to begin with.”

Hinata stares at his face as if he is giving her something precious; something like hopes and dreams. Her pale eyes are wide and dancing, and her mouth hangs vaguely open as if he’s speaking an impossible truth.

Finally she snaps out of it, swallowing thickly and looking down at their joined hands. “That’s… physical strength isn’t a necessity in battle for somebody like me, that is true,” she says, sliding her hand around Naruto’s wrist and up to the first blocked chakra point. “Physical force isn’t an assurance of victory, after all.”

And Naruto feels it this time; the tiny amount of Hinata’s chakra that enters his system and opens the path once more.

“Sometimes kindness, sometimes gentleness is the real strength I’m looking for in myself,” she murmurs, smiling with bittersweet regret as she moves on to the next point and the next, releasing him of her spell, returning the strength she had stolen from him with a skill that comes as easily to her now as breathing.

In truth, the soft touch of the Hyuuga style had always been the greatest at turning his strengths into weaknesses. In her skilful hands, his greatest power, what had made him a hero, is neither a threat nor a strength. In her hands what makes him great can be taken away so easily.

And yet, he never feels unsafe with her.

“Maybe,” he says, brushing her hand aside to her quiet protests so he can touch her chin and nudge her to look up and meet his smiling eyes, “the reason you’re still looking is because you can’t see the full picture of who you are.”

There’s still so much he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand family. He definitely doesn’t understand the clans. All this time, all this time he’s been watching the Hyuuga, and he still feels like he’s only at the starting point of unravelling all the chains—the rituals, the structures, the destructive words—that keep her trapped; all the chains Neji had escaped.

He doesn’t have their sight, and he doesn’t have his own clan’s knowledge of seals, and so he is left blind to so much, so much he needs to be able to see. Because if he can’t see it all, he will never be able to see Hinata and all that she is, all that the cage hides, for the bars and their illusions.

But Hinata’s eyes widen and he sees it in her; the shock at how well he has seen through her this time. How he has touched a hurt, how he has spoken something she desperately, desperately needed to hear; praise, acknowledgement.

_You’ve changed, Hinata. You’ve changed so much._

“Naruto-kun.”

Her voice trembles as she speaks, and she closes her eyes to hide from him, to keep tears she hadn’t meant to show at bay. And when she opens them again they swim, not in tears, but in emotions so deep he has barely seen beneath the surface, threatening to drown him, to pull him in and never let him go again.

“That’s so unfair,” she whispers.

“Sorry,” he says, and reaches up to push her hair behind her ear, to place his forehead against hers, to smile at her. “You deserve it.”

Hinata finds a smile at his words. It trembles at the edges of her lips, disbelieving and hopeful all at the same time.

Drowning would be easy.

The thought makes a flush crawl up the back of his neck into his hair and makes the tips of his ears burn, and Naruto pulls away with a laugh.

Hinata watches him with a smile, the negative emotions receding like clouds from an emerging sun. And slowly, one day at a time, Naruto hopes he gets to see the clouds vanish entirely, leaving only her warmth and her light behind.

While Hinata is looking for kindness, Naruto is looking for patience.

He refuses to let war and grief and fear be their starting point.

She crawls to her feet, slowly and steadily, and holds her hand out to him. “Come on,” she says, “let’s get back to practice.”

“Thanks—“

Naruto moves to take her hand, but her fingers curl in a minuscule hesitation and he pauses, waits.

“Unless there’s little purpose in it now, of course,” she says, pulling at the tips of her hair with her free hand, avoiding his gaze.

_I wanted to walk beside you._

“Are you kidding,” Naruto says brightly, loudly, to drown out everything that goes unsaid between them. To deafen her to her own insecurities. He grasps her hand before she can retract the offer. “You’ve beaten me every practice session we’ve had this past week. I can’t keep letting you run ahead of me like that, so I’m not giving up without a fight.”

Hinata nods and smiles, and drags him to his feet. “Your taijutsu definitely still needs work.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

They share a smile, and then a laugh, and before he knows it they are dancing again.

It is not an impossible task to improve alone. But as he steps back into a defensive stance, doing his best to block her attacks, to stay creative, Naruto knows that improving in Hinata’s presence is motivated more and more by selfishness, and that he is still just a boy with stars in his eyes and fairy tales whispered from his heart.

He still wakes from nightmares of her back against a clear blue void, after all. He still stares at the canopy of a night sky sometimes on missions and sees Hinata and Neji standing over him, offering their lives for his.

He can still hear that hopeless Hyuuga rhetoric on Neji’s lips, on Hinata’s lips, whispered in his ears.

_I’m not afraid to die protecting you._

_Hinata-sama is willing to give her life to protect yours._

And Naruto hates it. He hates this world that has created that requirement for self-sacrifice. He despises war and all the clans and institutions that have fought to uphold that way of life, that thrive because of those sacrifices.

But he doesn’t say anything because he knows Hinata wouldn’t want him to hate her family the way that he does. He knows it because he knows Hinata. He knows it because that’s how Sasuke is about his clan and his family. That’s how Sakura is. He knows it because he would never ever be angry at the village, for treating him the way they had when he was a child.

He loves this place.

And Naruto knows that Hinata loves her clan.

That’s why they could hurt them in the first place.

And maybe… maybe her answer has always been the right one. Change. Not just for her, or for him. But for all the people around them. They have to change the shinobi culture and the structure it’s built on.

So no child will ever have to suffer what they have suffered.

Naruto thinks that they are strong enough to do it.

So he will dedicate the rest of his life to creating a world where no one has to sacrifice their lives to keep another alive again. The right way. The kind way. The gentle way. And he will drag everyone along that he can; utilise Gaara’s friendship, Shikamaru’s intelligence, and Sakura’s drive, Ino’s craftiness and Sasuke’s regret. He will listen to Neji’s ghost, and he will help Sai build a new foundation for the village.

Sacrifice isn’t beautiful. It has taken too many people from his side. But Hinata is a living reminder that he can take hold of a hand and make sure the people he belongs to won’t stray from his side if he is brave enough to hold on.

* * *

The shinobi headband clatters to the ground outside the dojo, pausing them both in their steps.

“Ah,” he murmurs, crouching down to pick it up and making to stuff it back into his bag.

But Hinata stops him with a hand on his wrist. “Let me.”

Naruto blinks up at her. He opens and closes his mouth to protest, but she shakes her head and pulls the precious tie from his hand.

“When are you getting your arm back?”

Naruto scratches his cheek, and thinks back to the last time he’d pestered Tsunade about it and been thrown out of the office by the mere force of her roar. “Baa-chan says not long now.”

“That’s good,” she acknowledges, stepping behind him.

And he can almost sense her there, at his back, as if she is emitting chakra into the air for him to read, like the pull of the moon on the ocean of his spirit. It makes him hyper aware without activating Sage Mode, and heat crawls across his skin.

It is oddly intimate in spite of the fact they’re standing in the middle of a street, out in the open and in no way private. And Naruto tries not to squirm.

Hinata’s fingers thread through his hair, gently pulling his fringe back, and suddenly Naruto’s face isn’t warm. It’s burning.

“Your hair’s getting long.”

“Yeah. I want to cut it.”

His voice sounds steady and incredibly far away.

He wants to close his eyes or run away, or turn around and push his galloping heart into her hands.

It’s not a new emotion; it has grown steadily over the last two months from a seed that had sprouted long ago. Now with attention and focus he knows it will grow overwhelmingly, overshadowing every small detail, every little grief. Naruto knows it, and he knows it will blossom and glow like a new sun in his heart.

Hinata ties the bond carefully where he cannot see her.

“There,” she says, flashing him a smile as she comes into his line of sight. As she steps ahead of him. “That looks better.”

Naruto thinks of grabbing her hand as she turns to walk down the path before them, but he thinks better of it and follows her instead.

_Unfair_ , she’d called him.

Hinata’s the one who’s unfair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this chapter! I hope you had fun!!
> 
> And thank you to everyone who have shared comments and left kudos for the earlier chapter! I've been so happy to read all of your kind messages and interesting thoughts!
> 
> One of the things I wanted to explore with this fic was how both of them would be sorta gently angry at how the other had been raised, without the victim of that abuse really questioning the way they'd been treated, and I think that is best expressed both in the cooking scene and in the practice match scene.  
> This was primarily inspired by how angry I got watching the episode from the end of Shippuden called "Naruto and Hinata" which shows us how their early childhoods were; because Naruto went as hungry as he did that he had to learn (AT THREE YEARS OF AGE) to fish, and Hinata and Neji being taught from when they were very very young that sacrificing their lives for the clan is honourable and good. It shows how much war really permeates the shinobi culture as these kids all grow up and is absolutely Infuriating to me.
> 
> On the other hand the more I've watched of the early series (after I completed this fic), the more I've also realised how much the discussion of strength in this fic doesn't at all correspond to the complexities of Naruto's definition of strength--and how much that ties into how he sees Hinata--and that really troubles me, hmmmmm
> 
> But I hope you'll forgive that transgression of canon! I may come back with another on that topic later, if I can come up with a good setting and plot to discuss it (no promises tho).
> 
> Thank you again so much for reading, and for your support!  
> I hope you'll share your thoughts with me again!!
> 
> (OH! And PS: the practice scene was heavily inspired by the You Can Do It ED from Shippuden!!)


	5. Chapter 5

Naruto does his best not to wonder too much at how he got here.

His face hurts from the smile he’s forcing to stay in place, trembling at the edges. It burns into his cheeks, the embarrassment, and grows for every second the silence continues—on and on in spite of the people walking by in the street right behind him.

Hinata stares at him, her mouth slightly agape, fingers digging into a bundle of red yarn she’d been about to drop into her basket.

“I…” she hesitates. “Wouldn’t Sakura-san be better?”

Naruto shakes his head. “Do you know how Sakura-chan cuts her hair? With a kunai.”

Hinata touches her smile, as if to keep from laughing. “Don’t let her hear you say that,” she warns him, and he laughs. “Isn’t there another shop you could go to?”

The lie still burns on his tongue.

_My usual place is closed for the foreseeable future. Please help me, Hinata._

“Ah.” His laugh is too loud. “I prefer the familiar in this sort of situation.”

Another lie. It’s not as if he’s had money on hand for long enough to grow familiar with a shop like that; he’s just missing his right hand and that makes cutting his own hair too difficult to handle on his own.

Hinata hesitates and puts the red yarn back on its shelf. “Well, I do have a little experience,” she murmurs, stepping closer and tilting her head to study his hair. “So I wouldn’t mind, if you trust me with it.”

“Of course!”

The words are across his lips, rapid fire and natural, as if the mere notion that he wouldn’t trust her is the furthest thing from his mind. And as her expression softens Naruto knows it to be true.

He waves for her, and she joins him at his side, to begin the walk back home. Small talk comes more naturally now, and she’s more open about her days; she talks of her family, of Hanabi, of the girls, and of her team, and asks to him in return.

“I need to thank you properly sometime,” he admits, grinning, “Tsunade-baa-chan didn’t yell at me a single time when I reported to her the other day. Well, not for my progress, anyway.”

Hinata hides her smile behind her hand. “And what did she yell at you for?”

Naruto flushes and scratches the back of his neck. “Complaining about clearing out the pass from the village on my own,” he admits, wincing at how selfish it sounds when he says it out loud in Hinata’s presence.

“That can’t be helped,” she says reasonably. “It’s been nearly two months and we all need to get back to work, especially since it looks like the heavy snow will continue into march.”

“I know,” he whines, drawing out the vowels for emphasis. “But it’s lonely and boring.”

Hinata laughs behind her hand before taking a step ahead of him, twirling so she’s walking backwards. She clasps her hands behind her back and smiles. “Isn’t this what you wanted, Naruto-kun?” she asks. “The whole village is relying on you and trusting you. You’re clearing a path ahead for us, using chakra for something other than murder or war, and soon we’ll all be able to join you again.”

Naruto pouts and mutters something about Hinata being too reasonable about it, and everyone going back to work is exactly why it’s lonely, and she laughs again, falling back into step with him.

She tells him about the mission she’s been assigned—or, what she’s allowed to tell him, anyway. It’s another cartography assignment, this time to the former Land of Waves; an island off the coast of the Land of Fire. Though most of its citizens have spread thin across the world, some are returning, building new settlements and battling the forests that have returned to reclaim what humanity had stolen.

It pulls a little at his interest; so much of his own heritage is lost to him and he has never had time to rebuild. With his goals and his focus on the Hokage mantle he wonders if he will be able to glean anything of what has been whisked away by the waves on his parents’ graves.

“You’ll have to tell me everything about it when you return! Oh! And if you find anything on Uzumaki sealing jutsu,” he jokes, holding his door open for her, “please bring it back.”

He can see it reflected in her eyes; the history of extermination that shrouds his own clan in darkness and shadows.

But Hinata doesn’t say anything, doesn’t let the atmosphere become gloomy. She just smiles, flips the switch that turns the lights on in his tiny home, and says “I’m sure you could recreate those all on your own, Naruto-kun.”

And Naruto—

Naruto is grateful she turns away to greet the house, to take off her shoes, so she doesn’t see the way his face flares with emotions and his skin colours with embarrassment at her faith in him.

He hasn’t forgotten the shy little girl in a blue shirt, telling him of his own brightness in her eyes; he hasn’t forgotten that first moment of hearing someone truly respect him for who he was.

It is one thing to fight and kick and scream for acknowledgement from people who assume the worst in him, see monsters in his eyes; it is one thing to demand it, to push his shoulders back and speak lies about his own confidence in the hopes that if he fakes it he will make it. It is another to hear that demand reciprocated from the most unexpected place in quiet tones of complete belief and selfless support. From somebody who always saw the best in him.

And Naruto doesn’t know how to handle it. He doesn’t think that he can. Not without trembling at her touch.

They settle carefully in the kitchen with Naruto seated on his single folding chair, bathed in the pale winter sunlight from his window, and Hinata before him.

She unfurls a clean teatowel around him, her hand coming to rest on his left shoulder. And she hesitates, meeting his gaze.

“I don’t have one of those attachments the hair dressers use,” she says. “Could you hold on to it for me so I don’t get hair on your clothes?”

Naruto nods numbly.

Her expression is sweet and shy, her words awkward, and she doesn’t quite meet his eyes. And yet, her hold on him is strong; he can feel it through his sweater. Like that first night in december her fingers dig into his shoulder, into muscle and bone, and it doesn’t move away immediately as he lifts his hand to grasp the towel.

She is so close to him here in this tiny space, her shoulders hunched and her torso bent so they are eye to eye.

Her hair slips down over one shoulder in a loose braid, and she wears a thin white turtleneck under a thicker lilac sweater; colourings that match her skin and her hair, drawing out the pale shades of her Hyuuga eyes, the pink in her lips.

Naruto wonders if they are as soft as the hand under his fingers.

The thought flashes in his mind, the urge to lean forwards and kiss her so sudden and unexpected that he pulls back, nearly toppling backwards in his chair.

His face burns.

Hinata’s hand slips from his grasp. “Naruto-kun?”

“Ah, no,” he says, shaking his head wildly because he can’t wave his hand. “Sorry, sorry.”

She smiles as if she understands.

But Naruto thinks she can’t, thinks she is substituting her shyness for his own. Sweet and gentle and careful, Hinata’s feelings can’t be the same as the storm raging in his heart.

“How long do you want it?” she asks.

She reaches slowly across the distance to brush her fingers thoughtfully through his fringe, to feel the texture of his hair.

She is close.

Closer than she has ever been before.

Naruto tries not to stare at her face, at the focus in her clear gaze, at the pale flush in her cheeks. At the cut of her jaw, sharp and graceful, all at once. The way her hair falls in soft locks of midnight blue.

“Ah,” he says, trying to find his voice. “I— I was thinking shorter than I usually keep it? All this time I’ve kept it the same length; it was easier. But the war is over and I’m… I’m…”

He trails off.

Keeping it a birds nest on top of his head had been easier than learning to cut it properly. But it feels childish and inelegant. And like all his other friends he wants to show off his growth, to feel as if he isn’t an annoying brat anymore.

But saying that out loud feels childish all on its own.

Naruto looks down.

With his hand caught on the tea towel he can feel the phantom of his missing limb scratching at the back of his head again. The habit won’t die no matter how many times he feels insecure, no matter how used he ought to get to being awkward and off-balance. And it reminds him again of what he has lost.

You can’t touch somebody with the ghost of a memory.

“So,” Hinata concludes, “short and new, but still long enough to spike just a little.”

When he looks up in surprise at her addition she smiles at him. “Because it wouldn’t be Naruto-kun without a little messiness and energy, right?”

Naruto nods and mirrors her smile.

It is so easy to smile in her company.

Hinata makes everything easier.

They don’t speak as she works. Her eyes are focused on her task and her fingers work with precision. They brush over his scalp and through his hair with the grace of a lover’s caress, snipping strands of hair that land on the tea towel or his hand as gently as butterfly kisses.

And Naruto—

Naruto forgets to breathe.

Naruto can’t look away.

She is so close. She is so close he can see the individual strands of her hair as she brushes the locks back over her shoulder. She is so close he gets a clear view of the little of the column of her throat between the high neck of her shirt and her jaw.

He rarely gets to see her like this, to look up at her, but it makes him want to touch the underside of that jaw, feel the strong bone below her skin.

She’s never been this close before.

Always, always she has kept her distance. Always the reach has been so far between them, and he has never been able to touch her before, to take her hand in peace or to step up to her side.

He can still see her back, if he closes his eyes, against a blue void. The sky had been endless and blue on that day she had risked her life to fight Pain, and never had he been more afraid of its distance and its infinity. Never had she been so far beyond his reach, and never had he felt so much pain and sorrow, rage and hatred, for being denied the touch of another human being.

Of course, Hinata hadn’t needed a hand to reach him, to touch him.

All she needed were her words.

Naruto stares up at her pale eyes with their gentle, graceful smile and wonders if she still loves him.

He wonders if she really meant those words.

It’s been nearly two years since that battle and so much has happened since then. Hinata hasn’t brought it up again, and she treats him with more familiarity and friendship than she ever had before her confession. She doesn’t demand an answer of him the way Sakura does of Sasuke every chance she gets, and he never sees her down or distressed.

He’s never known Hinata to need a hand up; she has always stood up with her own strength.

Naruto cannot imagine her heart broken—not by him, not by any boy—the way Sasuke has broken Sakura’s heart.

Maybe she meant it, but only for a little while.

Maybe it was the heat of war brewing on the horizon; Naruto has read plenty of romances and heard plenty of people speaking of what war does to people. It makes them grow attachments impulsively and love rashly. It cuts life off at its roots and destroys meaningful connections, and people rush to each other to feel safe.

Maybe it was just a crush.

He knows about crushes.

But Sakura takes up a different place in his heart now together with all his other friends and his extended family. She is precious. But she is not his world.

She never were.

Maybe for Hinata, Naruto is the same.

It would certainly explain why she doesn’t faint around him anymore…

“You’re laughing,” Hinata observes even though she’s standing behind him and he never made a sound.

Naruto squirms at the feeling of metal and skin against the back of his neck. “It tickles.”

Naruto knows that to Hinata he is precious, he knows he hasn’t lost favour in her eyes. But maybe they are precious because they are comerades. Maybe she is precious because she has always known what to say when he needed the words of another the most. Maybe he is precious to her simply because they are walking the same path.

Maybe she never wanted to ask anything of him in the first place.

But that doesn’t feel entirely right, either.

“There,” she says, setting the scissors down and brushing gently at the top of his hair to study him, before tilting her head and meeting his eyes with a smile. “All done.”

There is a wish in her eyes, in his heart.

She can see it. But Naruto can’t make it out yet in the darkness of the future. All he knows is the past.

Sometimes he can still feel her hand in his, safe and precious. Sometimes he can feel her gentle palm against his cheek, reaching deeper than his chakra points. Seeing more, seeing through him to his heart and his fear, and everything that he is and doesn’t understand on his own.

Sometimes he can still hear her words in his ear.

_“I wanted to always walk beside you. I wanted to be where you were.”_

And this, at least, he understands; that they are the same. And that he is beginning to want the same things as her.

“Does it suit me?”

Hinata steals the tea towel from under his fingers and turns to fold it so it fits on the kitchen sink. “You look like a proper adult now.”

And maybe it is just his hopes he sees reflected in her eyes. Maybe it is just dreams he sees shrouded in moonlight. But Naruto imagines that her blush is for him, and that the bashful smile in the corners of her lips belong to him. To her feelings for him.

She is so shy and silent, and there is always such a serene grace about her. It makes it hard to look for himself in her heart.

Someday he will find real courage to ask her, but for now he hopes to just see the shadow of reality in her love for him; that it shapes in different contours than the way they love their favourite food or even their friends and family.

“Thanks!”

Hinata smiles, tilts her head and laughs. “Silly,” she says, “you should thank me when you’ve seen it for yourself and ensured that you’re satisfied. Not just trust my word for it.”

Naruto blinks. “Why not?” he asks, getting up to take a step closer to her, and he watches the red crawl into her skin as her eyes follow his ascent. “Hinata has excellent taste, after all.”

“I—“ she begins, her blush increasing for every word he speaks. “I—“

There’s a part of him that wants to continue teasing her, to check his hopes and dreams in a mischievous and selfish way that shrouds his own intentions and protects his heart. But there’s a much larger part of him that wants to treat her with kindness and care, that doesn’t want to see her brain shortcircuit.

And he has already received all the reassurance he needs in her reaction to him. For now.

So he steps past her to the electric kettle, fills it with water and sets it to boiling, before vanishing into his tiny bathroom to check her work.

The man blinking back at him in the mirror doesn’t quite resemble Naruto. The whiskers are there, and the blue eyes. But the blonde hair that had grown to nearly his father’s length in his carelessness is completely different. It still spikes from the top of his head, but it is short. So short it crawls up his neck, and leaves it open to feel the wind. So short he can see the way his jaw has shaped, square and steady, no longer hiding his progress into adulthood.

In the dark sweater he looks almost put-together and responsible.

Hinata has made him look reliable, like somebody worth trusting.

Hinata has made him look like a proper hokage candidate.

He almost can’t believe how she made it feel so real.

“Satisfied?”

When he turns his head she’s standing in the door with her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair falls elegantly over her shoulder again and she’s watching him apprehensively.

Naruto grins.

“Absolutely!” he says, stepping up to her and grasping her hand, pulling it gently away from her. “Thank you, Hinata. You’re the best!”

And finally, finally she shares his smile, her lips splitting and her eyes crinkling at the edges with real, overflowing joy. There is a flush in her cheek, and for a moment she glows, more beautiful than anything or anyone he has ever seen in his life.

There is still so much Narutol doesn’t understand, so much he still doesn’t know.

But he thinks that in the last couple of months he has caught up a little to Hinata. It is a slow process, and she has such a headstart. She’s watched him and known him since they were children, and he wants to return the favour. He wants to know her better than anyone, understand her better than anyone.

Until he can see through her the way she sees through him.

Because she deserves that; deserves somebody who cares for her unconditionally; deserves somebody at her side who is always on her side.

Of course, he knows he isn’t the only one in her corner; there is her team, and her family, and Sakura and all the other girls. Their friends.

But there is a wish forming somewhere in his heart, a wish to be something else. To be closer. He doesn’t understand it quite yet, but he thinks that he will, eventually.

Because even if he doesn’t understand love yet, he understands bonds. He understands not giving up. And he understand what it means to never want to lose the hand grasped in his.

* * *

Silence never really suited Naruto. He hates the quiet for the ghosts that don’t inhabit it, for the memories of loneliness and inaction of childhood.

Especially, he likes people who can’t stay out of other people’s business, who stick their noses in where they don’t belong, and speak even when they feel that they probably shouldn’t.

Especially, he loves people who can’t shut up in hospital waiting rooms.

Tsunade sighs with exaggerated exasperation and ties the last of the bandages to his new arm, ignoring the commotion outside. “Well, you certainly didn’t squirm through that entire process.”

“I can’t help it, baa-chan!” he complains, squirming where he sits in his chilly white Uzumaki t-shirt on the hospital bed. He feels like a kid that’s just been given the world. “I’m excited!”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Try not to overuse it in the first twenty-four hours,” she says, and slaps the connection between his own flesh and his new arm. “Your body needs to get used to its new addition and the prosthetic needs to adjust to your chakra flow. If anything goes wrong, come to me immediately.”

“Come on, Baa-chan,” he says, grinning down at his hand. His new bandaged fingers are flexing before him. It’s the most incredible feeling in the world. “Nothing so terrible is going to happen.”

“Naruto.”

Her sharp snap breaks his excitement a little, and he sulks theatrically up at her.

“I know you want to celebrate this,” she says, and a smile quirks her lips. “It’s a big day, and I know you’ve been waiting forever for this. But that’s also why we don’t want any complications. And I’m sure you can wait twenty-four hours with running wild like the brat you are.”

Naruto thinks of arguing, of puffing out his chest and saying he’s straightened up his act and grown up—just look at how well he’s handling her tutelage these days. But he thinks better of it and decides to show off instead.

“Fine,” he says, reaching into his kunai pouch with his new hand, and producing one of his teleportation knives. He twirls it around his new index finger, grasps the blade in his palm and extends it to Tsunade. “Here.”

She rolls her eyes but takes it. “You’re insufferable.”

Naruto grins and laughs. “Thanks!”

Tsunade takes a moment to study him, checking him for scraps and bruises they both know she will never find on his skin again.

Finally she smiles fondly at him. “Well done growing up, kid,” she says and ruffles his hair affectionately.

And Naruto, a little soft in the heart at the treatment, bows his head and closes his eyes to accept it.

“Now, speaking of insufferable,” she says, and points over her shoulder with her thumb at the door, “go and shut them all up, would you?”

Naruto grins and jumps from the hospital bed. “You know that’s never going to happen.”

He grabs his new black jacket, and throws it over his left arm. But he hesitates before the door.

“Baa-chan,” he says, looking back at her and allowing a moment of thankful vulnerability to show in his expression. “Thank you so much.”

Tsunade smiles at him as if he is family. “Any time, kiddo.”

“Alright,” Naruto says, taking a deep breath and throws the door open. “Tadaaaaa!”

He jumps into a pose reminiscent of Might Guy, showing off his new arm to all the people in the hall.

Sakura and Sai are there, the first to turn. Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji come next, followed by Tenten and Lee, Hinata, Iruka and all the rest. The hall is filled with people he knows, with friends that are nearly family, comerades and teachers.

Their faces all brighten at the sight of him and their roar echoes down the hallway.

“ _Naruto!_ ”

They spring forwards as if in one motion and flood him in a group-hug so overwhelming he isn’t sure which hand is touching his arm, which goes over his shoulder and which is ruffling his hair—there are several.

“Welcome back, you impossible idiot!”

“It looks good on you!”

“Finally we won’t have to feed you ramen anymore!”

And Naruto smiles and laughs so hard he thinks his lungs are going to burst from all the joy clamouring to be expressed—certainly his heart feels like it is overflowing. He hugs his friends and thanks them, teases Kiba and ruffles Sakura’s hair in retaliation.

There is a moment where he catches Hinata’s eyes over the throng of people and he flashes her a grateful smile.

 _“Won’t you come with me when I get my new arm?”_ he’d asked her. _“You’re meant to be accompanied by family to stuff like that, and I don’t really want to do it alone….”_

 _“Oh, Naruto-kun,”_ she’d said, and there’d been a secret in her smile. _“You’re so wrong.”_

Now he knows what the secret is; the truth she had seen in him and insisted on showing him. That he is never alone, that he will never be alone again.

 _“Enough!”_ Tsunade roars, scaring them all as one, so they cower like twelve-year-olds again. _“You’re bothering all the other patients!”_

“You’re the one yelling the loudest, baa-chan!” Naruto protests just as loudly.

_“What did you say?!”_

But before they can really pick a fight, Kiba and Shikamaru grab him by the collar of his neck and drag him away, apologising profusely to deafen out his protests.

“Come on, Naruto,” Sakura says to distract him. “Let’s go get some ramen. It’ll be our treat!”

“Now that,” he says, throwing his new arm over her shoulder in a one-armed hug, and sharing a grin with her. “I can’t say no to.”

* * *

“Do you really need to go?”

Naruto scuffs his shoe against a small block of ice so it rolls into the nearest pile of snow.

It’s barely been a day since he got his arm back and he hadn’t even gotten a full conversation with Hinata since then. And now she’s leaving on another long mission.

“Work is work,” she says, though her smile is a little lonely as well. “That has to come first.”

Her team is standing out of earshot by the gates, waiting patiently for their farewell.

“I know,” he whines, drawing out the sound, “I just—“

Hinata places a hand against his cheek and meets his eyes, searching for something only she would be able to see. “You’ll have so many missions now that your arm is back,” she reminds him, “that you’ll soon have plenty of other things to focus on. And that’s a good thing! You’ll get to prove that the mantle you’re fighting for belongs on your shoulders; that everyone can rely on you to always pull through and succeed.”

He’s heard this lecture from somebody else as well; from Shikamaru. From Itachi. From Iruka and Tsunade.

She is on his side.

They all are.

They have reached the height of jounin, and with that title comes new responsibilities, new awareness of the weight of higher titles. And they’ve all acknowledged him. He just needs to keep reminding the rest of the villlage.

“Be safe, ok?”

“Of course.”

“No more injuries.”

“Naruto-kun.”

“I know, I know,” he laughs. “I’m sorry.”

She pouts, and it’s so cute that he wants to hug her.

“Hinata!”

They turn to see Kiba waving for her, and she’s already moving away from him, already saying her silent good-byes.

But she doesn’t get far. Her hair flows forwards in a curve, momentarily revealing the Uzumaki sigil on her back, as he holds onto her, hand capturing hers.

And before he can feel embarrassed, before either of their faces can begin to burn, he pulls her back around and into a full hug, both arms going around her and holding her close.

Hinata stiffens against him, her breath of surprise caught in the fabric of his jacket.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, “I just really wanted to do this when I got my arm back. And now I won’t get the chance in a while.”

Hinata laughs.

It is a soft joy that he barely hears because it is muffled against his chest. She relaxes there, in his arms, her head coming to rest over his heart, and she tightens her strong arms around him—so he can feel he matters, so he feels safe.

And just for a moment he feels the truth of that grasp; that he is hers, inevitably, immutably, unconditionally.

He will watch her grow and change, but he will stay the same for the rest of their lives.

Then she pulls back and smiles at him. “See you soon, Naruto-kun.”

“Take care of your team.”

“Of course.”

Naruto watches over their departure until she is gone from his sight, and then he turns around and walks back into the village, his hands in his pockets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who got this far!  
> I hope you had fun with the overall story and with Naruto’s most recent meltdown as of this chapter /grins evilly. “Love is difficult for [idiots]”, indeed xD
> 
> The first scene of the last chapter was definitely the most difficult to write (and I nearly wrote the last two scenes first). Because I needed to balance Naruto’s growing feelings with the plot of the Last, and not have him put words to his feelings for Hinata. The solution became that the more in love he became, the more he began to walk at her pace and let her lead him by the hand, the more I realised I could foreshadow the kind of heartbreak and fear he would feel during the middle of the Last. Because Naruto is attached, and Naruto is dependent, but Naruto was lost and forgotten and hated by the people around him, and to find that you are loved and then lose that love again would be the most devastating and heartbreaking experience for him, I think (and I think that it was).  
> And coming up with excuses, and bad interpretations is the easiest way to post-pone “the inevitable”, to avoid it the coming night and to keep living in a brighter moment of midday.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your support — for your kind comments and your kudos and for sharing/recommending this fic on tumblr. I am beyond honoured. I had no expectations for readership what-so-ever and I’m so so grateful.
> 
> PS. this time I focused on Naruto's development and internal conflicts. Next time I want to write something from Hinata's perspective--OSHI


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